


Find Me Something Fair

by Moonreefe



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: A dash or two of magic, Angst, Dealing With Loss, Dreams, Drug Abuse, Grief, Inplied drug use, Iwaizumi Hajime is also a dumbass, Loss, M/M, Maybe - Freeform, Minor Character Death, Mostly he’s emotional and dramatic, No (good?) ending promised, OR IS IT, Oikawa Tooru is a dumbass, One-sided Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru, but less so, but who knows, dealing with grief, this isn’t a grim dark but it’s just really sad bc it’s a vent fic :’)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:07:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 22,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26571928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonreefe/pseuds/Moonreefe
Summary: “You’re favouring your left knee.” He pointed out, an eyebrow arched and his eyes on his paper. It had an air of familiarity. He knew why. “Did you come in to this knowing your knee was-”“I didn’t! I swear! I, well, it was that last jump, I aimed too high and I landed wrong-,” he’s cut off by a disapproving look, Hajime’s specialty, and the scratching of his pen on paper. Hajime doesn’t speak for a little while. Somewhere between writing ‘physical therapy recommended’ and the next words he was going to speak, a lump lodged itself in his throat. His foot taps hard a few times, something anyone with a keen eye for his habits knew meant he was stomping away whatever feeling he’d been having. That list numbered few.____Iwaizumi Hajime hadn't grown up a whole person. He'd been part of a whole, consisting of Iwaizumi and Oikawa. Hajime and Tooru. Now he's just Iwaizumi, he's just Hajime. Oikawa Tooru has never been further from him, physically or emotionally.----Playlist for this fic by my lovely friend Theo: http://bit.ly/iwaoigreensweaterListening while reading the fic WILL destroy every piece of your soul, but it's especially made based off this fic and its SO good. ilu Theo
Relationships: Hanamaki Takahiro/Kyoutani Kentarou/Matsukawa Issei, IwaOi, Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Comments: 9
Kudos: 16





	1. Ugly Green Sweaters and Unanswered Texts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hajime has a conversation with a coworker.

It had been a busy evening for Iwaizumi Hajime. Really, a busy life. It was the evening after a big game for his team, of which there were new members since the last year, not yet used to the tight ship he ran. It was one they had won by the skin of their teeth; and one in which they’d cut his work out for him with nothing less than a machete. Jagged edges and all. It was the youngest on the team, Hideki, who had really done the hacking. Hajime held his clipboard in his hands, pen perched precariously in his fingers. “You’re favouring your left knee.” He pointed out, an eyebrow arched and his eyes on his paper. It had an air of familiarity. He knew why. “Did you come into this knowing your knee was-”

“I didn’t! I swear! I, well, it was that last jump, I aimed too high and I landed wrong-,” he’s cut off by a disapproving look, Hajime’s specialty, and the scratching of his pen on paper. Hajime doesn’t speak for a little while. Somewhere between writing ‘physical therapy recommended’ and the next words he was going to speak, a lump lodged itself in his throat. His foot taps hard a few times, something anyone with a keen eye for his habits knew meant he was stomping away whatever feeling he’d been having. That list numbered few. 

“I’m recommending three to five physical therapy appointments spread over the next month and a half, giving you plenty of time to practice if you time them correctly.” He ignores the groan he gets and turns sharply on his heel, making a few corrective comments to those still doing cooldown stretches, handing the coach the papers he’d marked, as well as a few comments and making his way to his car. 

“Zoomi!”

Hajime halts with his hand on the door handle, turning to, if he had to pick, his favourite of the new members on the team. Fusao was loud, annoying, self-centered, and brash. On the outside. But somehow, to everyone's surprise but his, they’d formed some sort of a truce. Fusao saw through his imposing and stoic front somewhat, and he had the fortune of experience, knowing how to look right to the core of who Fusao was as a person. It had been with a knowing caution that he had approached Fusao as a person, with the knowledge that he had a habit of measuring everyone against...with the knowledge that his experiences would colour, and perhaps taint, any good that could come of it. 

“Yes? I don’t imagine you have anything to argue with me about, so what is it you’re after.” Hajime crosses his arms and leans back against his car, Fusao wiping sweat from his brow, with a smile on his face. He always dropped the energy around Hajime, he knew it wouldn’t do him any good, yet there were elements of his act he didn’t deconstruct. An act of pride. A familiar one.

“Sun’s just setting, strange isn’t it? Sun’s usually always down by the end of a game, must because we tossed em so hard!” Fusao winks, flashing all his teeth in a grin. He walks up next to Hajime, with apparently no thought of personal space. 

“It’s summer, the sun stays up longer. You nearly lost, very close game. What is it you want, Fusao.” His eyes have trailed to the place the sun is setting. He barely hears what Fusao says next, thinking of when he’d sit under a similar sky with Tooru. Listening to stupid shit he’d found on whatever social media, or thought of, or dreamt of.

“Hello? Hear me, Zoomi?” Fusao makes a show of waving his palms around. Hajime almost isn’t expecting to see a blonde, there, in place of…

“No, my apologies. You’d reminded me to look at the sky, and-”

“You miss her again.”

Hajime’s voice dies in his throat. Fusao had extracted, over time, little by little, more and more information from Hajime. Nagging questions he wouldn’t let go. Months ago he’d gotten out of him that there was someone he loved. Then that he didn’t know where, exactly, they were. Other questions Hajime must have forgotten. It seemed the only piece of the puzzle he was missing was.

“Him. Very much, yes.” 

Fusao’s perpetual smile falters. He kicks a rock, leaning further against Hajime’s car. It’s very quiet, considering it’s him, but he mumbles, “I know the feeling.” There’s a long moment of them looking up out at the sky together. It’s broken by Fusao shifting. “How do you...how do you handle it? Knowing…,” he pauses, as if looking for the words.

Hajime doesn’t need them. He knows what Fusao means. How do you handle knowing they’re somewhere, how do you handle not knowing how they are or what their new interests are or what clothing they’ve got up to wearing now, what things have changed or haven’t? How do you handle knowing they’re part of your past, now. How do you handle never knowing if they’ll be part of your future. 

Hajime shakes his head. His arms tighten around himself. “I don’t have an answer to that. I just keep moving forward, really. I.” He clears his throat, begging himself not to cry. When he did, he damn near couldn’t stop. “Sometimes I hope. Sometimes I curse myself out for hoping. Sometimes I. Get lost in what ifs, or how comes, or…build elaborate...scenarios in my head, but really I just. Keep moving forward. Stay busy. You know.” 

Fusao nods. It’s somehow comforting and damning all at once. 

“What about you, Fusao. How do you…”

Fusao turns toward him like he’s told a joke, an amused expression on his face. “Oh, Zoomi, do I seem like I’m handling any fucking thing well?” He lets his head fall back on the car. “I don’t. I distract myself, sometimes I want him dead, sometimes I think about calling, same as anyone else really. We ended on bad terms. The worse, really, I. I fucked up. I deserve this. But what am I going to do about it, huh? What’d you do, huh? Or was it him, he fuck up?”

Hajime shakes his head. The cold metal of his clipboard inside his jacket touches his hip, and he shifts to avoid it. “No. Not that straightforward. I.” He turns, leaning fully back against the car, head on the cold metal. “I’ve known him since childhood. He-well, you know, you remind me of him a little. He’s the kind of person you have in your life for nearly all of it, and you can’t imagine him...not being there. Then he isn’t. Then he’s. In Argentina. Being someone you don’t know, anymore, not answering calls or texts. You know exactly how he’s handling it. You know he wants to text, or call, or. But you know he won’t, you know you won’t get it through his head you want him to, or that-or th-,” he can’t stop it, anymore, the tears that spill forward and drip down his face, his face scrunching up as the pain he’s always running from hits him, and all of a sudden he’s sliding down his car, ass hitting the cold asphalt, in a show of strong emotion no one but Tooru had ever truly seen from him. 

Fusao follows him down. He bumps his shoulder against his, eyes watery. 

Hajime has the thought that he should try and save this, curb this unprofessionalism, they work together, and beside he shouldn’t be acting such a way anyhow. He doesn’t move, despite this, he doesn’t move to collect himself. It’d been so long of pushing it off, it wouldn’t do to keep it waiting, and hadn’t he always told Tooru that? To let himself rely on others, to let himself be helped and heard. About time he started listening to his own advice. “He thinks he’s so fucking smart,” he’s smiling at his hands, Fusao sniffled beside him. “He thinks he’s helping me, even, I bet. Or that I’ll move on or that I’ll be doing better without such a burden as talking to my best friend. He thinks he’s making my life easier, the fucking idiot. Making it out to be so much more than it is, making it all so much harder than it needs to be.” 

Fusao laughs beside him. “I can see why I remind you of him.” He traces some shapes in the asphalt. “Do you reach out? Have you?” 

Hajime nods. “I do. I do, I. I text, quite often. I’ve left a few...voice mails, I. I know he reads them. Listens. He’s never been one to leave something be. Unread.” He goes to stand, and Fusao puts a hand on his arm, points to his phone. Hajime opens the texts, stares at it, with Fusao over his shoulder.

“Oh, Zoomi. That many, huh?” Hajime can only nod. They’re all similarly curt. ‘I miss you, My team won this evening, I hope you’re alright, Remember to take breaks’. If it had been a few years prior, it’d almost read like a normal chain of conversation. Tooru had always been one to read a text and call instead, or talk to him about it later, or just send a picture. But. Radio silence. He was almost shocked every time a text went through, expecting to be blocked, or for Tooru to change his number, finally severing the last of Hajime’s hope that he’ll ever see him again. 

Fusao and him talk on for a while longer, and part ways. He promises to make time to see him outside of work, some time. He texts Tooru another ‘I miss you’ and carries on, what else is he to do? His relationship with loss was about as good as his relationship with emotion. He’d never show much of it, but it went deep, it cut, and it settled just above his head, ready to collapse on him at any time. 

It’s what this was. Loss. Even if Tooru wasn’t, well, dead or anything. He’d moved on, clearly better than Iwaizumi could hope to, they barely spoke anymore. He knew he had a place somewhere in Oikawa’s...mind? Heart? But whatever he had going on in Argentina kept him busy. If it didn’t, then he kept himself busy. Iwaizumi had once described Tooru as a hamster. If displeased with the cage, it was ever so easy for him to distract himself on the wheel. Or make up a dozen reasons why the way he was doing something was clearly the best way, while making the cage as uncomfortable as possible. 

He missed him, deeply. It was the stupidest things that set him off. One of those on the team he worked with had a pillow in his apartment, it said ‘Whiney Princess”, it was horrendously ugly. It was something he’d’ve sent a picture of to Tooru. Or when he found something he’d’ve gifted to Tooru, or talked to him about, or something he knew Tooru liked, or hated. There were so many things he wanted to say, or share, or ask that taunted him. So many things that only had worth between them, lost or tainted with anyone else.

He’d gotten home, taken off his coat, his glasses, prepared for bed, and stared himself in the mirror. He watched his own face crumple, and almost without his realization his phone was in his hand, and he was typing, deleting, typing, deleting. He wanted to ask if Tooru’d just forgotten about him, or if he was really that busy, or if he was too much of a bigshot now, he wanted to yell at him, or plead with him to rethink whatever idiocy was going through his brain. He thought paragraphs and only got through sentences before deleting them. 

It’s holding his phone and sobbing and yelling and acting like a child that he remembers their biggest fight. One where he’d thought he’d lost him, one where it was the both of them being idiots, hurting each other out of their own hurt. One where they thought they’d never see eachother again. Hajime’s family had almost moved, right before highschool. Tooru avoided him for ages. He’d run when he saw him, faked ill out of things, he’d done so much to avoid him. Iwaizumi had yelled at him, yelled after him, but he’d never stopped chasing him. The full two weeks or so he’d avoided him, he’d never stopped trying to talk to him. He’d finally caught him one day, tackling him to the ground. Nearly broken and very much strained his arm, and yet Tooru was the one who apologized, sobbed into his shirt. “I thought it’d hurt less if you didn’t care about me anymore.” 

He hadn’t changed much at all. 

He remembers, he thinks, to the letter, the words he’d left on the note in his locker that evening, when Tooru was at the doctor’s. 

He reopens his phone, and types, 

“You left your green sweater at my house. It’s stupid and I don’t want it. It looks better on you anyway.” 

It’d been something Tooru had understood then. He’d always understood Hajime, even with how stupidly bad he’d been at conveying certain things. It meant “come home”. It meant “I want you” and “Please come back” and “I care about you” and so many other things.

It meant “I love you”. It meant “There’s room for you, here”. 

The funny thing was he did, really, have that sweater. It’d stayed with him, despite that message, for years. It was hung up in his closet as if he could wear it. Which, he could, technically, it was a big sweater, just a tad short. He hits send. 

He washes his face. 

He turns the light out.

He goes to bed. 

There’s nothing else for him to do. 

Life begins again tomorrow, he has to show up. 

He only wonders for a moment or two if, all the way in Argentina, Tooru will wake up on time for the next day. If he’ll see it. If he’ll continue on, regardless, without answering, set in his ways. The idea makes him smile, if bittersweetly. 

Somewhere in the closet, the green sweater sits, with a note in it’s pocket scrawled on loose leaf paper years ago. 

The last line reads “As long as you have this, we’re best friends, so don’t throw it away! >:(  
-Oikawa Tooru”


	2. If A Dove Speaks Peace, A Pheonix Speaks Hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’s already crying by the time his eyes land on Tooru’s smiling face. “What kind of talk is that?” Tooru chides. He pulls Hajime down next to him on the bleachers, settling in beside him. “Is this how you really think?”
> 
> Hajime pauses. His memory isn’t perfect, but that wasn’t what Tooru had said back then. He’d said something to the effect of ‘the puppy will be fine’, or ‘we’ll take care of them.’ Hajime turns toward him, somewhat shocked. Tooru looks sad, a little distant. “Is that how you really think, Hajime?”

Hajime blinks. He looks around a good minute, feeling the cold bleachers beneath him. It’s Wednesday afternoon, Aoba Johsai’s big game is coming up. It’s odd, he remembers this bleacher being on the other side of the school’s outdoor track, but it must just be the stress of knowing…

He looks at his lap. They’re going to lose. He’d realized it after staring at the plans all night, Tooru asleep beside him. He can’t for the life of him remember who they’re meant to be playing against, and he reaches up to push his glasses onto his face. Except he’s a teenager, isn’t he, and he hadn’t needed glasses until twenty. 

Oh. 

He recognizes it now. All of a sudden, the bleacher is on the correct side of the track, and he rises to step down it. It’s a dream. Of a very specific moment. He leans against the rail of the bleachers and waits, eyes closed and head tipped up. He doesn’t look like his teenage self, and he’s wearing his glasses, the sides of his hair shorn and the top longer, pulled into a ponytail at the back. He’s wearing a leather coat he’d been gifted. His piercings feel cold and distant; when he goes to feel them, they aren’t there. 

How odd. 

He supposed it made sense, dreams were like this sometimes.

Just as he suspected, he hears Tooru’s footsteps coming toward him, the customary shouted “Iwa-chan! What are you out here moping for??? We’re waiting for you you know!” 

Hajime sighs, shaking his head, “We’re going to lose, Tooru.” 

He doesn’t turn to face him, but he hears rather than sees Tooru’s tone shift. No one else was here, there was no need for that act, and they both knew it. “Look who has his head up his ass now,” Tooru said, and it was almost sweet, but touched with exasperation. He fits himself beside Hajime. When Hajime opens his eyes, he realizes he’s a teenager, again, his Aoba Johsai uniform in his hands, a grey hoodie on. He shakes his head.

“I have to be realistic. I can’t hide from it. We’ll lose. I have to figure out how to...how to be there for everyone, how I’m going to handle Makki’s inevitable breakdown, and how he’ll push Mattsun away again, and Kyoutani just settled in. What if it pushes him away? What if he goes back to hiding? Playing all by himself?”

Tooru tuts beside him, and he smiles despite himself. He misses when Tooru would do that. When his guard was down and he felt comfortable displaying his intelligence, his kindness, surrounding Hajime with it. He felt a hand on his face, pulling his head toward Tooru. 

He’s already crying by the time his eyes land on Tooru’s smiling face. “What kind of talk is that?” Tooru chides. He pulls Hajime down next to him on the bleachers, settling in beside him. “Is this how you really think?”

Hajime pauses. His memory isn’t perfect, but that wasn’t what Tooru had said back then. He’d said something to the effect of ‘the puppy will be fine’, or ‘we’ll take care of them.’ Hajime turns toward him, somewhat shocked. Tooru looks sad, a little distant. “Is that how you really think, Hajime?” 

“What do you-,” he blinks, looking around like something on the track field will help him understand. His eyes land back on Tooru’s face, and he recognizes that expression. He knows any moment now Tooru will break down. 

“So hopelessly.” Tooru cups his face in his hands, and tears start falling down his face. Hajime’s arms come up to hold Tooru, hooking around his back, and they stay there a moment. Just looking at each other, just crying.

“I don’t want to hope,” Hajime whispers, shaking his head, “It hurts too much to hope. I’ll just get crushed. Better to be realistic, isn’t it?”

Tooru’s forehead is against his, all of a sudden, each breath loud and shaky. He’s shaking his head, and he pulls back, looking into Hajime’s eyes in such an intense way Hajime feels the air pull out of him. “No.” 

“No?” 

“No.” He shakes his head again, “No.”

Hajime scoffs, even as he’s wiping one of Tooru’s tears away. “What would you have me do?”

Tooru hiccups, and holds on to him tightly. Hajime can’t hear his next words. He remembers them, though.

He awakens with a start. His chest feels funny, empty, like someone had driven a stake through it and been damn motivated to get it all the way through, ribs and heart be damned. The heart, perticularly. He wipes his eyes and sits up, staring into the darkness of his room a minute. 

Then the tears start running, and he laughs, shaking his head and rubbing his face. It hurts so profoundly to see him in dreams, to touch him, hear him, and wake up knowing his voice probably sounds different, knowing he hasn’t known him for years, now. 

He stands on wobbly legs and goes to get himself water, an occasional hiccup slipping past his lips. He sits cross legged on his couch’s footrest, sipping the water and trying to calm himself down. But he keeps thinking of Tooru’s face. Of how it must look now. He’d avoided looking at social media. News. Anything. He wondered if Tooru ever checked in, if he knew what he looked like now. He did look incredibly different. Maybe he wouldn’t even recognize him. 

His hair was different. He had piercings. He never was one drawn to impulse, back then, but things changed, and he was still strict and proper enough to take them off at work and fit in, anyway. So far no one has bothered him about his hair. 

He still wears rather plain clothing. Maybe a bit closer to something stylish than his old ratty hoodies and non-designer hole-ridden jeans. 

He’s a different person now.

Tooru must be too.

He almost gets his phone out to look, but it’s on his bedstand, and he thinks maybe that’s for the best. Could he stand to see how different Tooru was now? He’d hit the ground running after highschool, Hajime knew that. They’d talked just a bit those first couple of months, Hajime had even called him out for running again, for pulling away. But by the time he’d fully slipped out of Hajime’s grasp, well. He’d almost not noticed. After all if he was so busy he couldn’t talk, Hajime respected that. 

But days turned into weeks. Months. Years. Not for lack of trying, but they were as far as they’d ever been apart, and Hajime just never really was a social media person. He’s sure Tooru’s flooded every channel with thousands of badly angled pictures of his face, random, confusing and badly worded sentences, things to that effect. Things he would have told Hajime about, forced him to sign up to or redownload the various apps just to look at. 

He hasn’t checked in approximately two years. 

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to. But he had, on and off, that first year. It’d hurt. Badly. Sending shockwaves of pain up and down his arms, into his legs. He wasn’t one for enjoying pain, not like that, and after that any impulse had been met with his iron clad control, and swiftly diverted, and then it just felt normal not to look. To stay away. But he still wondered. One time he even nearly did open it, but it’d just been a picture of Tooru’s pets, and even that felt so strange and distant he just shook his head and closed the app. It’s for the best, he always tells himself, and every time he thinks about it and feels that pain, he’s assured he’s making a good decision. Besides, the Tooru shown there wasn’t really Tooru. Not his Tooru, anyway. A different polished, perfectly made up and fabricated version of Tooru, where even his various failures and pains and happinesses were about as real as his camera smile. 

Hajime just knew him too well.

His actual smile showed off his stupid teeth and made his nose wrinkle up in an ugly way.

Hajime loved it.

It hurts, but it warms him up enough thinking of the times he’s seen it that he falls back asleep. Not quite smiling, but. Warm.

It’s two days later, when he’s out to dinner with Takahiro and Issei, that he remembers the dream. Takahiro is in the middle of talking about the last match he’d watched, how it’d reminded him of one back in highschool. Issei looks like he’s about to combust, trying so hard to remember which one it was.

Hajime swallows the food he’d been chewing before pointing a fork at Issei, “Date Tech?”

Takahiro slams his fist on the table, “Yes! You’d think I’d remember that.” He rolls his eyes, digging back into his food. 

Issei snorts, “Jeez, slow down, you’ll choke. Save that for the bedroom. Yeah, Date Tech. We won though, didn’t we?”

“Didn’t think we would,” Hajime remarks, and the dream is suddenly placed in time. He pauses, humming. “I’d resigned myself to losing, actually. Even said it to Tooru’s face.” 

Issei’s eyebrow pops up, and Hajime wants to reach over and pluck it off. Stupid, double wide eyebrows. Issei seems to mull over it for a moment. “I’ve seen you get mopey before,” he comments, nodding, then taps his fork on his plate. “But never straight up resign yourself to losing. Especially before a match has even started. What was going on up there?” he gestures to Hajime’s head with the fork. 

“Not much,” Takahiro snarks, winking at Hajime cheekily. Hajime kicks his shin under the table, and snorts when he goes ‘youch!’. 

“It was an important game, and uh.” He stirs his food around, humming. “Well. I’d been through that with coach a few times. They had an excellent defense, and we had an excellent offense, and. Well, it’s been some time, I don’t remember everything I was thinking but. I thought we’d lose. I thought that would be where it all ended, and I knew how crushed Tooru would be. I was right, too, considering…,” he gestures, and the two nod. They know what he means. The fabled Tooru breakdown that they all knew was coming, that erupted two weeks after they’d lost. 

He’d only let Hajime around him. He was miserable for so long. At some point he’d even shut Hajime out. 

It’d been a hard time. For all of them. 

“I was scared it’d drive Kentarou away too, back to hiding away like he had been. That it’d make you two fight too. I was worried about everyone. I’d resigned myself to it, and I was moping on the bleachers. Late for practice that day, I think. So Tooru came looking for me, and,” he shakes his head, rubbing his face, “Gave me this speech about hope.” His voice wavers just a little, and both his friends scoot closer, bumping their legs against his. 

They hadn’t really heard from Tooru either. Every now and then, he’d like one of their comments on his posts, but their messages went unread and unanswered, just like his. They all missed him. They knew how hard it hit Hajime, how couldn’t they? They knew, everyone did, that for so long Hajime and Tooru made up two parts of a whole. That there was something there no one else could understand. Of everyone, Issei and Takahiro understood the most. They’d quickly cycled together, not quite in the same way, but they’d been inseparable since the day they met. 

Issei and Takahiro share a look, while Hajime takes his glasses off to wipe his eyes. They’d never told anyone in highschool, not that Hajime knew of anyway, but they’d dated for a long time. Fire and napalm, volatile and messy. Takahiro’d always struggled with his mental health, Issei’d always had a hard time being emotionally available. They found they got on better as best friends, up until the point they’d involved Kentarou. He’d balanced them, somehow, Hajime’d seen the effect first hand. Like the perfect even weight on both sides of their scale. He’d become somewhat wise, his notorious temper switched out for patience and calm. He’d become someone else entirely, with the support of the team, someone Hajime loved dearly.

He knew they both winced whenever they thought of separation, of losing eachother. They’d talked about it once, briefly, and they’d both looked to be in pain. They knew, somewhat, how he felt. It’d brought them closer, and Hajime could never complain about that, circumstances be damned. 

They don’t revisit the topic that night, they move on to talking about Takahiro’s newest job. He, unfortunately, hates it to bits. He always does. Issei, for his part, doesn’t seem upset about it. Takahiro’d been jumping jobs and going in and out of mental hostice for some time. But he was on the up and ups, somewhat, and Hajime couldn’t be more proud. He’d seen him do worse, far worse, they’d all been there for rock bottom, and every major up and down since.

Issei talks a bit about his job too. He seems to like it there, even if, in his words, “The funeral business is a giant, shitty scam.” Which is something he goes on about for a while. It surprised Hajime, really, his choice in job. He’d always been one to distance himself from emotional connection with humour. The idea of him being involved in such an emotionally charged thing as funerals spoke funny, but then again Hajime should have seen it coming. After all, the thing you struggle with is the thing you work hardest on, isn’t it, if Kentarou’s turn around had been any proof to that. Issei Had become a deeply compassionate person, despite the fact he had little to no empathy, which had been quite a long time coming for them all to learn.. Watching him grow had warmed Hajime’s heart. He’d learned a lot from him.

If he was honest, it was these two and Kentarou that had really made his life brighter, even after everything. He had other friends, of course, who he valued, but these three had been his support system for long enough that he knew he could always rely on them. Be honest with them. Let his guard down. He was lucky to have them. 

They walk around town for a bit, once they’ve finished eating. Takahiro and Issei hold hands. Hajime’s hands are in his jean pockets. They go in and out of a few stores, Hajime knows for certain something or other ends up in Takahiro’s pockets. Borrowed, of course. 

As is practically customary, they all end up back at Kentarou, Issei and Takahiro’s house, after saying goodbye already two times. Kentarou, who had gotten home from work an hour before their arrival, had made food. He’d anticipated Hajime’s arrival, and made enough for seconds for everyone. He always did, he’d become quite a wonderful cook as well. He spoke about opening a restaurant some time, after he was done with Volleyball, though he spoke about it as if it was so many centuries off that Issei called it ‘Old Man Kentarou’s Eatout’, which he emphasised by winking after ‘eatout’ every time. 

After eating, all four of them were sprawled, exhausted, on the couch, all leaning against eachother, legs and arms and all else, shitty horror movies playing. Issei always fell asleep during movies, near immediately. Takahiro, somehow, got too invested in them every time, barely blinking and gasping at the scary parts no matter how many times they’d seen it. 

Hajime’s almost fallen asleep when Kentarou nudges his shoulder and gestures for him to come. He untangles himself from both the snoring men on the couch, wiping his sleep away and raising an eyebrow at him. Kentarou pushes a cup of, what Hajime can only assume, is hot chocolate at him. He picks it up, and Kentarou and him sit at the table. 

“Thank you,” he says, appreciatively folding his hands together before taking a sip. It’s rich, and he can tell immediately it’s not made with powder. It’s pure, actual chocolate. “It’s delicious. Those boys sure are lucky.” Kentarou’s smile is warmer than the chocolate, and Hajime feels his chest warm. He loves his friends, so very dearly. Practically his family, really.

“It’s nice to see you, Hajime. It always is.” Kentarou smiles at him again. He’s in a huge yellow sweater. It’s fuzzy, it looks warm, and it’s got the same stripes across it as he has on his head. Clearly, it was a gift from his partners, and Hajime can’t help but pull a fond expression. 

“You as well, Kentarou. You all seem so happy, I’m so glad for you all.” 

Kentarou nods, looking over at his sleeping partners with such a fond, loving expression. “Sometimes I wonder how on earth it happened. Seems strange, doesn’t it? But it works, somehow. You’d know how that feels, better than most.” 

It hits his chest like a hard fist, the tears well up immediately, and he makes no move to stop them. Kentarou had seen him cry plenty of times. Maybe not as hard, or as fully, as Tooru, but plenty of times. He knows Kentarou is trying to get him to talk about it, he knows he would listen for hours. He has. Hajime takes another long sip of the hot chocolate, just nodding slightly. His laugh is dry, and bitter, when he goes to respond. “No one thought we’d get along, when we were little. I was so withdrawn and quiet, and he wouldn’t stop yelling or crying or throwing things. But I, I sat right next to him and shook my head, and he listened. I told him he was too loud, and that loud people were stupid, and he-,” he’s laughing and crying all at once, now, trying to wipe the tears as they fall, and only managing to wipe them all over his face, “He _whispered_ the whole rest of the night. Actually whispered.” 

He shook his head, exasperatedly. Kentarou is chuckling. “That does sound very much like him. Did he whisper the next day?”

He knows he’s told Kentarou this story a million times, and yet he tells it just as fervently as he ever has. “No! By the next day, he’d entirely forgotten it ever happened. I felt bad for it, too, so I didn’t remind him. Instead I just shushed him over and over, and even as little as I was I could tell he was _trying_ , but that fucking, god, that idiot still p-,” a sob breaks loose, and he has to suck in air, “Probably s-still doesn’t know volume control!” Kentarou somehow appears next to him, rubbing circles into his back and directing him to drink more chocolate milk. He does, and he leans against his fuzzy yellow sweater too. 

When he’s calmed a bit, he continues. “I always thought I had to be the ‘adult’. Not because we didn’t have any in our lives, though it wasn’t as if Tooru’s mother...well. She wasn’t spectacular, which is a light way of saying she was a bitch.” He rubs his face, shaking his head. “I really thought him stupid for a little. He kept me at arms distance, and of course he did. Everyone treated him like he was stupid, and I.” He smiles, “It didn’t last long. I saw it, one day, between all the whining and pouting and theatrics. Funny enough it was, well.” He takes another sip as he thinks, and realizes his cup is fuller than he thought it to be. Kentarou was refilling it, clearly, somehow, despite not having moved. “His mother would send him to the store for her, and I’d come with him sometimes, and it was shopping that I. He’d been so focused. He’d chucked her list out early gates and planned every penny forward.”

He shook his head, “It’s hard to explain. Shopping doesn’t seem like it requires a lot of thought but, with as little as he was given and with, with. He knew he’d get in trouble and I realized every single movement, every act or...it was all to avoid this unforeseen trouble he thought was ahead. If he could just seem stupid enough, every act would be a great feat. If he could just seem emotionally distant enough, who would try to hurt him? Who could?” He goes quiet a moment, looking up at Kentarou, who’s just looking back at him, nodding. 

“He had so much on his plate so young. Or, well, not enough on his _plate_ so young. It wasn’t like my family was rich but, I was. I was fine. He always made himself seem so big and so. Well off? Sometimes he’d eat apple sauce for weeks. He hates apple sauch, I. Ahaha. I started inviting him over, then, he’d eat at mine. He’d always save parts of the meal for his family. Practically lived at my house, really.” He shakes his head. His parents had skipped blow up mattresses and the like and just bought Tooru a bed there. His mom had taken a shine to Tooru, and of course she did, the charmer. His dad was busy, mostly, but when he was around he’d greet Tooru warmly. 

Sometimes, after they’d gotten a bit older, Tooru’s younger siblings and nephew would be there, too, all crammed into Hajime’s room. His mom had asked once if it bothered him, how often his room was filled to the brim with people. He honestly hadn’t ever minded. Seeing Tooru so happy, how could he? He’d clean up a billion messes and deal with broken and missing toys any time. He’d never been much for them anyway. 

He finishes off his hot chocolate, and Kentarou seemingly doesn’t have any more secretly stashed anywhere. 

He knows, now that it’s finished, the serious part of the conversation starts. It’s not one they have super often, they’re both busy and sometimes Kentarou doesn’t manage to stay awake when he’s over. But he knows it’s coming when Kentarou sits across from him again and looks at him pointedly. “I’m not telling you to move on,” he says, and Hajime knows it’s because of the first time they’d had this talk, “But I think you should let yourself...socialize more. You’re shut away in your house most the time, or working yourself to the bone. I never mind you here, none of us do, but I’m worried we’re the only people you ever see outside of work.”

Hajime chuckles, and Kentarou smiles a bit. “I swear I’m not a hermit, Kentarou. I went out to dinner with a few members of my team, a…,” Hajime pauses. “A month ago.” 

Kentarou rolls his eyes, and Hajime winces a little. “I...have plans? With Fusao?” 

“I’m glad. But. Outside of the people you’re forced to socialize with?” He quirks an eyebrow, sitting back against the chair, and Hajime has to laugh at how domestic the sight of Kentarou in his big fluffy jacket, on a chair he makes look tiny, holding a tiny mug of hot chocolate in his big hands was. 

“I, well.” He sighs, shaking his head. “It’s. I can’t stop... or. Well. They’re just not.” He rubs his face. 

“Not what, Tooru?”

He freezes, hands still on his face, and just lets himself slouch over onto the table. “No one’s Tooru. No. But it’s. I try not to compare-” Kentarou snorts, and Hajime knows he has to drop his shit. That’s all he does, and Kentarou’d called him out on it hard a few times now. “Well it’s. Kind of hard to...meet someone and forge a lifetimes worth of a connection with them instantly, yeah.” 

Kentarou’s look of exasperated fondness and his little head shake are audible from where Hajime still has his face in his hands on his table. “Have you tried? I mean, no that’s not possible, but have you tried to...at all? Have you?”

Hajime sits up nods. “Just. I’ve tried meeting people, yeah. Not to. I mean just as. I’ve tried, yes.” He sighs, “I usually meet them and they seem. Alright, and they talk to me, and I talk back, and I just. It’s like everyone’s...it’s like there’s a layer of styrofoam between me and every other person-I mean, besides you all-on the planet. Like they talk but I just can’t quite hear it, like they’re just. Somewhere else or, I just can’t find it in me to care when it’s so hard to...to…,” he makes an exasperated motion, not knowing how to put it into words. “To care!”

“I had a girl ask me if I was a widower. Said I just didn’t feel...emotionally available enough. I’m not. That’s the thing, I just don’t. I don’t want them. I don’t want to even. Get to know them. They start talking about something or other and it’s like it gets lost somewhere, like I’m lost in my head, and by the time we’re leaving I realize I didn’t hear a word of what they’re saying.”

Kentarou’s eyebrows are raised. He’s never told him this, before, despite all their talks. He seems to think on it a while, finishing off his chocolate milk. “You try therapy?”

He remembers, briefly, the one time he’d tried. “I. Well. She said I was fine and sent me on my way.”

Kentarou just stares at him for a minute. “They...can do that?” He looks puzzled, and then shakes the thought out his head. “You’re not. You know that. You’re depressed, Hajime.”

“I’m not!” He then pauses, and thinks on all the laundry piled on his floor, the dishes he swore he’d get around to, the fact this was his second outing in as many months, how everything just seemed to be too much energy, “I am. I am depressed.” 

Kentarou nods. “You are.” He gestures toward the guest bedroom. “Get some sleep. We’re looking at therapists tomorrow.” 

He nearly protests, but Kentarou gathers him up in a hug, and he nearly falls asleep on him. “Alright, alright. Goodnight, Kentarou.”

“Goodnight, Hajime.”


	3. Devotion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I don’t want to hope. It hurts too much to hope. I’ll just get crushed. Better to be realistic, isn’t it?”
> 
> “No.”
> 
> “What would you have me do?”

Hajime’s father dies on the eighth of July. 

His mother calls him just as he gets home. She tells him, and then they just sit in silence for a while. They sit in silence for most of the call, really. Hajime’s family had never really been one for showing emotion, he’d been trained from the get-go to keep it in. Sign of weakness and all that. They sit there in silence, tears dripping from both of their eyes. He hears his mother sniffle, and he can almost imagine his father handing her tissues, all the while stonefaced. He’d often just sit by her and hold her hand when she got upset. 

He wishes he had the release of being really, truly devastated; but he’d processed his father’s death years in advance, the slow simmering pain of it present through most of his early adolescence, and now that it happened it just felt hollow, like some sort of divine proof. 

He calls out of work for a while. The team understands, after all, he’d over-prepared them for their next match at worse, Hideki’s knee was stronger than it’d ever been. Fusao sends him memes, some with explanations. He knows Hajime won’t get them. It makes him smile, but he doesn’t reply. 

He doesn’t tell Kentarou, Issei, and Takahiro, yet. He’s sure they’ll attend the funeral if they can, and he just needs a little while to himself. 

It’s twelve days before Tooru’s birthday. 

It’s horrible timing.

He’d had plans to go to his parents on the fourteenth. To see them, to, funnily enough, celebrate Tooru’s birthday. They’d never gotten out of the habit of it. 

He had to get a rock from the backyard, too. To send Tooru. Another ritual he’d just never stopped. 

It started when Tooru’s ‘fossil collection’, which sprung up sometime in middle school, was presented to Hajime. In it, some twigs he swore were bones, a plastic Halloween rat’s skull, very old gum with some sort of small animal’s footprint in it, and a rock from Hajime’s backyard, his most prized possession. The rocks in Hajime’s family’s backyard were pretty. His father had bought them and dispersed them around the backyard when they’d moved in. Each stone had bits of white quarts in them. When Tooru and him were younger, they somehow reached the conclusion that this was because it was an old, haunted archeologist’s dig site.

He’d asked his dad pretty early on, but Tooru was so excited about it, he never corrected him. He’d stay dead silent and stone-faced as Tooru rattled on about it. He knew Tooru knew better, anyway. He was smart. But it’d been fun for him, and Hajime liked it when he smiled and talked so animatedly he nearly fell over.

Every year since then, he’d searched through the backyard for a good one of those rocks. He’d wrapped it and given it to Tooru, among other gifts. He’d label it a ‘unique and rare fossil’, wrap it up in far too much paper than a rock ever needed, and pen a very ridiculous certificate of authenticity. 

Hajime didn’t come from an emotional background. He wasn’t taught to love by sweet-talking or giggling or blushing or what have you. But his father had driven hours every year on the day before his wife’s birthday to buy her the white roses from her hometown, and she’d spend the day pressing each petal. His mother spent hours every year on the ridiculously specific, difficult to prepare meal her husband loved, following her husband’s mother’s recipe to a T.

Devotion was a love language Hajime spoke fluently. 

One of few. Another being whatever Tooru did was called, he’d yet to find a word for it after all this time. Some kind of strange mix of vulnerability and trust mixed up with painfully apt self-awareness and an almost distanced self-commentary. He’d spoken to Tooru’s girlfriends on occasion, or rather they’d launched themselves at him to question him. They’d found him confusing, Hajime found them confusing, and those confrontations never went well. But it’d been interesting to see how they’d processed things. ‘He just talks about himself all the time! Does he even like me?’ 

He peels himself off the couch, forcing himself into the shower. He’ll pack tonight, he supposes, and drive out to his...mother’s tomorrow. He has to dig for his luggage. It usually didn’t come out of the coat closet until winter. It’s unfortunately rather large, and he stares at it for a minute before chucking it back in and grabbing a duffle bag instead. He won’t be there for months, and the idea of lugging that huge thing around in his car just makes him tired. 

The problem is that when he walks into the closet, it’s there. Somehow he found ways to avoid coming in here or to avoid acknowledging it when he was, but it was just. There. Sitting on a hanger. Tooru’s sweater. It’s always bigger than he remembers. They’d been middle schoolers, but Tooru had stolen it from his older brother, and it’d been massive on him. Hajime packs half the duffle before he gives in. He buries his face in it, hugging it tightly, inhaling. He ends up pulling it off the rack, sitting against a closet wall and crying into it. 

Sometimes he talks to it like it’s Tooru. He thinks, if Tooru ever saw it, he’d probably laugh. Hajime wouldn’t blame him. “Do you remember what my dad used to say to us when we were little?” He winces at his own voice. It’s sad, it’s wavery and tearful, and he feels pathetic for it. “He said we might as well date the same girl. Funny thing to say, wasn’t it? Called us two for one.” 

Sometimes he’d even just refer to them as ‘twofer’. Just in general. “Come down for dinner, twofer.” “Clean up this mess, twofer.” “Ready, twofer?” 

His dad had joked about them being siamese twins every time they’d crowded under the same blanket or sat on the same chair at dinner. His mom said she wondered sometimes if she’d secretly had twins and just lost one of them. Tooru interjected just to say he’d be the better-looking twin, and Hajime had jabbed him in the side. He called Hajime the evil twin.

It was odd to grow up feeling like half of a pair, with someone he technically had no on-paper connection to. If it wasn’t so weird to think of Tooru as his twin, considering he’d at some point fallen in love with him, it’d be damn accurate. He hasn’t found a better way to put it, yet. 

He folds the sweater and packs it into the duffle. Despite the fact that in two years of living where he did and never experiencing a fire, nor a flood, nor a tornado, in his mind any of those things could happen while he was away, and he’d rather have it with him. Safe. 

It’s far from the only bit of Tooru’s clothing he has. Especially at his parent’s, where _over_ half the clothing in his childhood bedroom was either Tooru’s, or something they’d shared. His parent’s had even labeled one side of his closet ‘Tooru’, even though they’d never managed to really keep the clothes that tidy. 

But it’s the most important. He’d safety-pinned the pockets shut, sewn up the hole in the bottom of them, and kept that note in there for ages. It’s in a waterproof sleeve, too. He takes a bit of pride in the fact that half the things he does in Tooru’s absence would make his head swell to the size of a planet, all the while he’d be rolling his eyes and saying ‘and you call _me_ dramatic’. 

When he falls asleep he sees that dream again. They sit on the bleachers, flush against each other, and Tooru looks up at him, distraught. 

“I don’t want to hope. It hurts too much to hope. I’ll just get crushed. Better to be realistic, isn’t it?”

“No.”

“What would you have me do?”

Tooru grabs his collar, this time, looking up into his eyes, eyebrows furrowed, “You remember I said this, you hear me?” And Hajime’s stomach was full of worms, suddenly, blinking down at Tooru. “And I’ll prove it to you eventually.”

He just stares, his fingers curling against Tooru’s back. You already have a dozen times, he thinks, you already have, but he can’t make his lips move. Somehow he gets the feeling Tooru knows, doesn’t think it’s enough, his determined face doesn’t waver. He wakes up to his alarm. He feels light for a moment. Tears spill down the sides of his face, and slowly reality slips back to him, but as he watches his ceiling fan slowly spin around, he nods. “Okay, Tooru. Okay.”


	4. Powerless to Murphy's Law

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hajime receives news he knew was coming. It was easy to know it was coming if he just expected everything, after all.

The drive down to his parents has always been one of his favourites. He gets to pass by every landmark of his early childhood in one go. The tree Tooru had fallen out of, breaking his arm. The brick wall they’d taken turns boosting each other onto. The brook where Tooru had had his first kiss, detailing it to Hajime later. The playground they’d played on in middle-school. The place they’d made their snail garden. The walk they did from Hajime’s house to the school. The little alcove they’d snuck out to where they’d talk about ‘secret stuff’ and do ‘secret things’. Which, really, was just the place they’d gone to just be. No rules. No one watching.

Tooru never did his weird fake laugh, there, and Hajime never put up the front of being an ass. It was a place where they were free. A place they talked about things they’d pretend they never had later on. It’s where they’d begun being physically affectionate. After all if no rules applied there, the one where people called them mean names for holding hands when they were ‘too old for it’ didn’t apply either. Tooru’s head on his stomach and his hand in his hair, petting gently like he pet his cat Piku. 

He could almost imagine them there, but it must be overgrown by now. Or maybe torn down, replaced with a four way intersection, or infested with rats. He better not look forward to seeing it, actually. It’s been too long, it’ll have changed by now, and-

He hadn’t even gotten there, yet, he’s barely a quarter way there, already thinking about each thing he’ll see, already feeling any pain he might think to expect, and when he reaches them he’ll do his best not to spare them a look, and wasn’t that how he just handled everything? 

He’s already felt his mother’s crying, his father’s empty chair, a table with only two plates on it, what his brother’s voice will sound like over the phone when they call him, all of the pain had already been had. He’d broken down the moment he’d woken up, screaming and scratching and sobbing, all done by the time his feet hit his floor. All of the pain in one go, so no light could infect it. He’d process it early whether it was guaranteed to happen or not. Kentarou, Issei and Takahiro’s deaths, how they may stop being friends. How they might lose their games. How Tooru was gone. His mother and father’s deaths. He covered them all every morning, and the rest of the day he’d just dig his nails into his palms at any thought of them and push on. 

It was no wonder those that didn’t know him well thought he just didn’t care. Because by the time they were addressing it, he’d gone through it so many times already it was like picking at a scab. Over and done with, in his head. No reason to think it’d go any better than he expected. If it went badly? He’d had it covered. Yet, if it went well? He almost felt affronted, like just that little bit of hope would taint him, like he might just let something slip some time, hope for it too much, that it’d hurt so much more when it was ripped from his hands.

He’d made that mistake once, and he won’t make it again. He wasn’t much for retracing incorrect steps. 

It was something about him that had always driven Tooru crazy. 

They’d talked about it far too many times, Tooru’s reaction to it a mix of pulling his hair out and laughing fondly, albeit sadly. 

Well. Tooru’s method was no better. Like he could talk. He’d deny he was bleeding out until he couldn’t. He’d push the pain away and laugh and smile and hide it until it consumed him, pulling him down, biting into him. He’d fight it and slam himself against every wall in his brain, end up numb and proclaim he was fine. Then blow up, dig himself a hole, jump into it, and complain about how hard it’d be to claw his way up. Sit there for a while.

Hajime had been there for many of those cycles. 

He’d gotten “I’m _fine_ ” texts, been lashed out at, been pushed away, been told off and told him off back, enough times to know just how well he dealt with things. 

He stops for gas, about half way. He doesn’t know how it slipped his mind to refill his tank, it’s not something he’s done before, but grief makes you funny. Not that he’s grieving. He’d done that already.  
He looks at his phone,and pauses. A ‘sports news’ notification, and about six texts from each one of his friends. It had the makings of something serious. Not quite ready to confront his three closest friends, he taps on Fusao’s contact.

He’s met with reminders to take care of himself, that things would be okay. He’s a bit confused. He hadn’t told Fusao or anything about his dad, he hadn’t even told Kentarou and crew. He taps on Issei’s. It’s memes, and for a moment he wonders if Tooru died. The squirming feeling in his chest and pain in his fingers reappear, fear creeps down his legs, makes his toes cold. He taps Takahiro’s. It’s half memes, half reminders how important sleep and water are to emotional stability...in dogs.

He decides to bite the bullet before looking at Kentarou’s, popping the news app open. 

“Pro Athlete Oikawa Tooru Injures Leg During Match; Rumoured To Be A Pre-Existing Injury”

He clenches his jaw, the tension in his shoulders building before he yelled, turning around and slamming his fist into his own car. The tension bled out of him fast, his face meeting the hot, chipped silver paint. It hurts. It sends flashes of pain through his fingers and legs. He digs his nails into his palms hard, stomps his legs. 

Of course. 

Nobody on that damn fucking team kept in check, did they? How could they? Hajime could even bet they didn’t fucking know, that he’d charmed his way out of physicals, that they barely knew him. They probably saw this as a little setback, an indication he was so passionate about the fucking idiotic sport. Hajime knew this was a slippery fucking slope, he knew what that little fucking _slip up_ lead to, because Tooru felt worthless benched, guilty, burned himself out on those feelings and went numb, decided to do stupid shit to make himself feel something.

He runs six laps around the gas station. No one’s around to see him, anyway, and he needs the energy out. He counts pieces of discarded trash, reads the signs, tries to convince himself he doesn’t even care about Tooru, anyway. By the time he’s finished, he can almost convince himself he’s not upset. That he’s not, somewhere in his head, panicking, predicting every next move, every breakdown and screaming fit and manic, all too happy smile. Like he’s not processing every single worse case scenario all at once. Like he’s not coming to terms with them all as if they’d already happened. He pretends he’s not scared, that he doesn’t want Tooru in his arms so badly, that he doesn’t want to skin him alive, be there for him.

He ignores Kentarou’s text, for now. He knows what it says. He doesn’t want to hear it. 

He doesn’t want to hear another fucking word about how he couldn’t fucking do anything. He knew. How could he not? He knew!

Everyone acted like that was supposed to be comforting.

As the gas tank of his car fills with a quiet hiss, his mind flies wild. With each scenario, a different batshit crazy solution he had no ability to pull off. He imagines himself flying there, finding him, throttling him within an inch of his life. Or, maybe he’d just be supportive, maybe that’s what he needed. No, someone had to call his ass on his shit. Back and forth, like it even mattered. Like he had any power over any of it. He bets Kentarou’d called him on this already, called him desperately trying to find purchase on the nonexistent hill he was climbing. Like if he could just figure his end out, it’d help somehow.

He knows better. He really does. 

But shove it away as he may, his brain proceeded, going through every scenario, only pausing briefly with every painful stab of his nails into his palm, with every stamp of his legs. He almost sobs when the tank fills. The last thing he wanted was to be alone with his mind while driving. He looks at the meter pleadingly, like it’s going to offer some consolation and just pretend to keep going for a while. It just stands there, apathetic entirely to his suffering.

He paces back and forth for a while, and then digs Tooru’s stupid sweater out of his luggage, sitting in his back seat with it. For just a few minutes, he lets himself cry into it. He lets every spark of pain travel it’s course, lets himself feel how fucking bad it hurts, before shoving it all back again, folding the sweater, and getting into the driver’s seat. 

He plays cheery music and attempts to ignore every landmark he passes by. It almost lasts, until he glares as he passes by that idiot tree Tooru’d fallen out of. One of their biggest...he couldn’t really call it a fight, but what else was he going to call it? Tooru’d been hurt. He’d been nursing his broken arm for the entire walk back, and yet even though he was sobbing, he insisted it was just bruised. He’d been enraged when Hajime had told his mom, gotten so angry at him, they hadn’t talked for a while, even as Tooru still slept next to him. Even as they walked together, ate lunch together. He’d glared at Hajime the whole time he’d been benched at practice, as if hiding it would just have fixed it and he’d be able to play. 

He’s crying again, tears flowing down his blank face, the only sign of distress beyond his eyebrows twitching. 

He was so far. 

He was so far, and he was so...something. Mad? Sad? Hurt? All of the above? 

Hajime didn’t see him every day.

Didn’t have his lunch in his backpack, didn’t sit next to him, didn’t share a club with him. 

Didn’t see him. Couldn’t. 

Somehow it finally occurs to him that Tooru won’t come to his Papa’s funeral, either. Won’t hear about it, probably. It’s not exactly sports news. Doesn’t talk to anyone he does, either, so. He wouldn’t know. Wouldn’t even know. He has mixed feelings. It wouldn’t add to his burden, but. Fuck. Neither of them got to say goodbye. Tooru hadn’t seen Papa for years. Hajime almost wants to be mad. 

He’s just tired, instead. 

He’s just so tired. 

By the time he’s there it’s night. 

His mother greets him sweetly, kissing him on his cheeks, hugging him. Her eyes are swollen, and in her hand in a handkerchief. He knows it’s one his Papa bought for her. It has her initials on it, in big flourishing font. He holds her to his chest for so long, rocking her gently as she weeps, his thumb gently stroking her wet cheek. He looks into the big, empty house over her head. He knows. He knows how lonely she must be. How alone being in this house must make her feel. 

He knows. 

He brings his duffle in. He uses the guest bedroom, where his older brother’s room used to be. He can’t face his and Tooru’s. He knows his Ma hadn’t changed a damn thing about it. The mess they’d left that last day before Hajime had moved out is still there. So many of Tooru’s clothes he’d always meant to return to him. Their toys. He knows Tooru’s bed has all three blankets in the room on it. He always stole them, and Hajime always let him.

He’s confronted with the pain he’d already processed. His eyes linger on his Papa’s chair. He hears his mother crying. His Ma sets three plates on the table. Only two get filled. They call his brother. It all moves slowly, painfully, and he’s so tired. Every single thing felt like a proof. An “aha!”. He very nearly feels smug when it hurts. But mostly. Mostly he was tired.

He feels fatigue in his bones. In every muscle. Behind his eyes. His mother kisses his cheeks again when their meal is done. He does the dishes, and they both go to bed. 

Hajime can’t sleep. 

He sits awake most the night, going between crying and feeling nothing. 

When he falls asleep he finds himself on the bleachers. He gets up, walks down them, and leaves. He doesn’t wait for Tooru. 

He doesn’t want to hear it.


	5. Blank Pages, Pressed Petals, Tired Smiles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “He never learned not to run,” and Hajime’s eyes are dragged away from the picture of them on the wall, from the wedge of light that peaked through the blinds and split the photo in half, perfectly. He looks at her, shocked, as she shakes her head. “You’d know better than anyone, Hajime. Sometimes you have to run from so many things, it...you can’t fathom doing anything else.” She’s quiet for a moment, before she whispers, “He won’t come to the funeral, will he?” Hajime shakes his head. His eyes gloss over as his mind dips into the past. Running, yeah. Running on a bad knee until it gave out. Trying to do it in so he could finally stop running, so he could gain rest he never knew how to enjoy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was hard? I don't know why. I rewrote it a fair few times, and I'm...not sure I'm fully satisfied, still, but. Here it is. <3

When he wakes up it’s to the smell of breakfast tea. He’s almost confused. Did someone come over last night? He opens his eyes, and...where is he? Is he at his mother’s? 

Then it all comes crashing back down on him, and his body aches, pain shooting to every extremity. It all flashes through his head, and he turns to shove his face into the pillow, to try and breathe. His father is dead. He’ll never see him again. Tooru is gone. He’ll never see him again either. Tooru hurt himself. His Mother had cried. His Mother was lonely. All of it strangling him alive the second his eyes opened. Like waves, hitting him over and over again, each battering his helm more and more. They threatened to pull him under, kicking and screaming.

He doesn’t move to get out of bed for a little over an hour, only shifting position every now and then, begging comfort from stiff unused pillows. He can’t bear to make himself leave, like if he can just feel all the pain here it won’t cling to his every waking step. His mother steps in, at some point, to tell him breakfast is ready. She pauses, in the doorframe, when he thanks her with a voice dead as driftwood, and twice as warped. She turns with purpose, and Hajime just watches her go, closing his eyes and staying put. 

He doesn’t hear her come back in, jumping at the pressure beside him as she sits, forcing himself to sit up against the engraved wooden headrest to give her more room. He hardly feels it digging into his back over the deafening silence. Her shaking hands set a pile of what look to be sketchbooks on the bed. She’s crying, and she doesn’t speak, clearing her throat. She opens one of them, and hands it to him.

Inside the plain brown book are pages and pages of pressed white rose petals. In his mother’s handwriting above every single one, a date and a little heart. He sits up further, startled, taking the book into his hands gently, flipping through months and months of pressed petals. He looks at her, tears beginning to drip down his cheeks. Her smile is watery, and she taps the book, “I started this when your father and I were in high school. He would buy me those white flowers every-e-,” she chokes up, and he pulls her closer, rubbing her back with his hand, “Every week on friday. I would press the prettiest petal, and date it.” 

He flips through another month of flowers slowly. He reaches a daisy, and looks at her for an explanation. “They were out that day. He was so upset that he was late to...to meet up with me, but he still got them. He still…,” she laughs, “He never smiled at me, or said many kind words. Not many words at all, you know your father.” He nods, he doesn’t think he’d ever heard his father talk for very long. It was as if his wife knew what he’d say anyway, and she’d pick up wherever he trailed off, carrying on for some time. She was perky, energetic and excitable. Seeing her so sad, so quiet, was so odd to him. 

“I gave this book to your father on the last day of school that year. You should have seen his face, so shocked…,” she laughed, “We weren’t even dating yet.” Hajime looks at her, wide eyed. Somehow it was odd to him to ever think of his parents...not together. Especially when presented with such transparent proof of their feelings. They reach the last page, where a heartfelt and sweet message was printed in his mother’s hand. 

They go through two more years of the books, before she nods at one, “This is when we started dating,” and once again he double takes. “We had just graduated, actually…,” the look she gives Hajime makes him tense. Of course. He should have known it would come up. It always did, even if subtly. “He was heading to a college a little further west than I was, the one just a mile or so from here!” He nods, he knew where his father went. He’d tried to pitch it to Hajime a good seven or so times, but it didn’t have the programs he needed. His father had just been desperate to keep him close, and he understood that. He’d had enough time with him in his childhood not to feel like he’d missed out with him, even if they’d sometimes been...at odds. 

He turns to press a cheek into his mother’s shoulder for a minute as his chest tightens. He loved his father. He loves his father. When the first sob hits him, his mother turns and pulls him into her chest, petting his hair and crying with him. His mother’s shoulder is warm, and he closes his eyes, pressing into her. She smelled like roses, like the same perfume his father had bought her for her birthday every year. It’s another ten minutes before he can bear to let go. He kisses her cheek when he parts with her, and they go through a few more. “This one is when we moved.” The dates stretch to be one petal every month. “He would drive out there, silly man...soon I told him it was too much gas he was wasting, and he would buy them from the shop closer, and then money was hard, so only every month. But he insisted on my birthday he would go to our hometown, and sometimes I would join him…,” she smiles, kissing his head gently as she stands, “There’s many more of these.”

He pulls himself out of bed, holding all of the books carefully in his hands, pulling the cover back up behind him and following her out. She directs him to a bookshelf in her room, and he blinks. He always thought they were...well, books. But now that he looks closer, each and every one has a handwritten date on the back. Oh. He gently places them in order. His eyes land on the very last one, and his heart drops. He looks at her, and she’s looking away, tears dripping down her face. He pulls it out, gently, and opens it. It’s only halfway done, and...oh. There’s a page that’s already dated, but it’s. Empty.  
“Did he ever miss one?” He asks, his voice hoarse. She shakes her head, closing her eyes. 

“Even if every shop was closed, we had no money or gas, and he was sick, he would find something. He would always find something. A-a dandelion, a white paper he cut into shape. Something.” Hajime holds the half finished book in his hand and stands, going to his father’s desk in the room and sitting. He takes a white sheet of paper that’s laying on the desk and rummages through the desk until he finds scissors. His mother presses her face into his back, arms around his shoulders as he cuts it to shape. He opens the journal, gently sticking it in with a rolled up piece of tape. She laughs, but it’s mangled as she sobs, squeezing him so tight it hurts. “My darling baby boy. You’re so sweet, just like your father.” 

She’s quiet as she watches him do it again for this week, and he stands, hugging her gently before placing the book back in place. 

She goes to grab breakfast, and he knows it’s because she needs a moment to herself. He sticks around the study, keeping himself busy for a few minutes poking around his dad’s drawers. He opens the last drawer on the desk to reveal dozens of papers, all carefully stacked together. On top is a very recognizable Oikawa original, done in crayon. Hajime has to close the drawer, pacing around the study a few times until he’s called to breakfast. 

His mother had prepared star shaped pancakes. It was a specialty of hers, and she prided herself on their sharp corners. Hajime always thought they tasted better that way. Crispier, as opposed to ridiculously fluffy. He’d always liked it better that way. His father had too. Hajime had a star pancake mold at home, he’d rarely been able to get it nearly as nice as his mother’s but. It was nice, when he was homesick. He’d have to use it more often once he get home. 

It’s after a while of talking about his team, Kentarou and crew, and stuttering through an answer to ‘what do you do besides work?’ that she falls silent for a moment in deliberation, and he knows what’s coming. “Hajime,” and it’s hushed, it’s hesitant, “Have you...have you heard from Tooru?” He flinches slightly. It’s different, hearing his name so gently said by his mother. Different than sobbing it into his sweater, different than the stern way Kentarou says it, different than the abominations Takahiro and Issei use in place of it. It’s different, and his grip on his fork is white knuckled, and his eyebrows dip, crinkling the skin between his eyes. 

He can’t bear to answer her. After a moment she nods, dragging a slice of pancake through the same bit of syrup over and over, “My mail doesn’t go through, anymore. I was going to ask you if he...moved.” There’s a painful silence, and each breath Hajime drags into his lungs is stuttering, jagged, like every memory that dances around them. Dents in the wall, decor that had been put on the wall slightly crooked and never touched, clothing that wouldn’t fit anymore. Like lashes, each one, like every step of distance was walked on burning coals. 

Like he was so stupid to think everything could ever stay the same, like it was foolish to ever expect anything of the sort. 

“He never learned not to run,” and Hajime’s eyes are dragged away from the picture of them on the wall, from the wedge of light that peaked through the blinds and split the photo in half, perfectly. He looks at her, shocked, as she shakes her head. “You’d know better than anyone, Hajime. Sometimes you have to run from so many things, it...you can’t fathom doing anything else.” She’s quiet for a moment, before she whispers, “He won’t come to the funeral, will he?” Hajime shakes his head. His eyes gloss over as his mind dips into the past. Running, yeah. Running on a bad knee until it gave out. Trying to do it in so he could finally stop running, so he could gain rest he never knew how to enjoy. 

He doesn’t come back to the present until that afternoon. His mother and him are arranging the funeral, paperwork and calls and her tears on his shirt, his stoic face. Then his phone was ringing, and he’d just called the funeral home, so he doesn’t think twice about putting it to his ear. But it’s Kentarou, and he’s saying so many words so calmly, but all Hajime picks out is “You need to worry about yourself, you can’t do anything to help him”, and he knows when those words are said, he knows. He hangs up, and he opens the damn news app, ignoring the notifications as Kentarou tries to call again, texts. 

“Pro Athlete Oikawa Tooru rumoured to be dodging physical therapy, may face benching in next game due to-”

He doesn’t finish reading. He just puts it in his pocket, and goes to make tea. He argues with himself in his head, the entire time. He shouldn’t care. He knew it was coming, and really, he should be more present in his life, he needs to get over this, to get over him, to move on. He needs to stop thinking about him. He’ll go out, he’ll meet people, he doesn’t even care about Tooru. He’s stupid for caring so long, anyway, wasn’t that what Tooru thought anyway? 

He fails to notice the tears until one finds it’s way down his face, off his chin, and into his tea. He stares at the mug for a minute or two, noticing suddenly that his hand is trembling. If it wasn’t his mother’s, and if she wasn’t in the next room, he’d smash the mug right on the floor and scream. Cry. Really have himself a fit. Prove anyone calling Tooru the dramatic one of the two wrong. He dumps it out instead, cleans it and sets it on the drying rack. 

He excuses himself and goes on a run, tears dripping down his face the second he leaves, jogging until he’s screaming, running so hard it hurts every inch of his body. He runs like he’s running from a murderer, and screams twice as loud, he runs with every bit of his energy until his legs give out and he bowls himself right into the ground. He hits the ground with his fists, pulls at his hair, and yells until he doesn’t have the energy anymore, collapsing on the grass patch nearest to him. He’s thankful to not have seen a single person, vaguely aware how that would have looked. Probably better than it felt, either way. How had they ever called him the mature one of the two? Probably because of how hard he’d repressed himself in front of them. Tooru, of all people, knew. He’d been there for the screaming fits and the hair tearing and the sobbing, he’d been there for it all. He’d never let anyone else be. Not the same way. 

Who would want to be, after all?

Tooru always laughed at him, when that was the only excuse he could drag up. 

Traitorously he feels his chest warm. He laughs, a choked and loud laugh, a hyena laugh. “I love you,” he says, “I love you so much, you _fucking_ idiot. I love you s-,” he chokes on it, turning to cough into the grass. He slumps there, and fights with himself, love and anger and exhaustion. Longing.

He must have fallen asleep at some point, because when he next opens his eyes, it’s dark. A flickering street lamp illuminates the immediate area, and he sits up, scrubbing his face. He curses and digs his phone out of his pocket, shooting texts to everyone who’d blown his phone up out of worry. The walk home is long, and he takes a few wrong turns every now and then. He tries to be quiet when he enters, but all of the lights are on, and his mother has fallen asleep in a chair at the dining room table, her face tear stained and red. 

He gently stirs her. She looks up at him exhaustedly, and touches his face, tells him not to worry her like that. He apologizes, holding her in his arms. It all feels so distant. He’s just tired, he reasons, and without thinking he goes up the stairs to their room. His hand is on the handle before he realizes. He lingers there for some time before turning around, going back to the guest room. He’s out the second he collapses in bed. 

He’s sitting on the grass turf of his highschool’s field, holding a watch. The numbers spin, a representation of the time flowing and flowing. He’s got a hand up against his face, blocking the sun out, eyes scanning the distant track field for Tooru. It’s longer than he remembers, it’s so, so long, and he can’t even make Tooru’s figure out from this distance. The time on the watch is ridiculously long, and he’s confused by it. There’s too many digits. Does that stand for days? 

Then he’s at the table at lunch, Tooru is across from him, but he won’t listen as Hajime tries to talk. Like he can’t hear him, eyes focused somewhere else, eating, laughing, but it’s fake. When he finally turns to him, Hajime is so relieved. But his eyes go right through, like Hajime isn’t there.

They’re in his room, and Tooru is pressed against him, sobbing. He keeps trying to ask what he’s crying over, what’s wrong, and Tooru can’t get it out over hiccups, over sobs. 

He’s sat on a bench across the place from his work, and Tooru is next to him. They don’t look at each other for some time. Hajime whispers, “I miss you.” He feels Tooru’s hand on his knee. 

“I miss you too.” 

Hajime’s hand finds his, and their fingers intertwine. 

“I love you.” 

There’s a long, long silence, and Hajime turns to look at Tooru. Tooru is looking back and him, and he looks. Pained. He shakes his head, and leans forward to bury his face in Hajime’s neck. “Please don’t. Please.”

Hajime scoffs. “What do you-”

Tooru sits up, turning Hajime’s face to his with his hand, shaking his head. “I can’t let you do that to yourself. Please…”

His brows furrow, he turns fully to Tooru, shaking his head, “Do what to myself? Do what?” 

Tooru looks tired, he looks so tired. His eyes are glossy with exhaustion, the emotional kind, and Hajime could see it in every groove of his face, in his shoulders. Whatever he sees in Hajime’s face makes that look paint his face. The one he’d get when Hajime cried when they fought. The one where he was painting himself as a villain in his mind, and Hajime rolls his eyes. 

“Stop. I can see what you’re doing up there. Shut up.” He pulls Tooru closer, and Tooru resists for a moment before leaning against him.

“You’re getting hurt. I’m hurting you. I’m _hurting_ you.” 

“Shut up.” Hajime holds him, rocks him. “Shut the fuck up, Tooru.”

There’s a silence in which Hajime hopes Tooru is finally going to drop it. Instead, Tooru pushes himself up. 

“You could find someone. A nice girl, a nice guy, someone-,” his tone is frustrated, tired, like he’s gone over this so many times but know Hajime won’t hear it, “Someone better, someone closer, someone less-,” he makes a gesture to himself, then groans in frustration, “Why won’t you just. Get over me, already? I feel like I’m cornering the Hajime market and I’m not even, I haven’t even been here.” He laughs mirthlessly, pushing a hand through his hair, “I’ve been so fucking...good! About not talking to you, about giving you room, and you still wont-”

“Shut up. Nothing about that is good, nothing about that is-” 

Tooru looks up to him, somewhat shocked, probably at how intensely he’d shouted it. 

“Shut up. Stop saying that shit, you know I-,” he grits his teeth, “Why do you feel like you can make decisions for me? Why do you feel like you need to? Do you think I’m an idiot? Because-,” he laughs, scrubbing at his face, “You treat me like one. You really do. I’d love to believe you’re out there having the time of your life, that you’d forgotten about me, but I-fuck, I know you too well. I know every moment of your life you’ve been dodging anything positive because you feel like you don’t _deserve_ it. I know you’re isolating yourself, I knew you were pulling away. I know shit, Tooru, you fucking idiot. Don’t treat me like I’m pining after a stranger, like I’m not getting over a highschool crush, I’m-” He chokes on anger, and somehow they’re standing now, and Hajime is in Tooru’s face.

“You’re my fucking soulmate. I miss my fucking soulmate.” 

It’s said with no delicacy. It’s spit out, through gritted teeth. Tooru smiles. It’s a frustrated and tired smile. His laugh is hauntingly mirthless, pained. 

“Me too.”


	6. Devotion; Revisited

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He drops it in, and shoves the handle up, letting the package fall in. He stares at the machine until someone calls him, trying to get his attention. Startled, he apologizes, bowing and leaving as soon as he can. He sits in his car, head back against the headrest for so long. 
> 
> He feels stupid. He feels like such an idiot. 
> 
> He’s never felt more alone in his life.

He finds himself on the track again, stopwatch in hand. The number it reads is incomprehensibly long, and he feels nothing but cold dread as he looks at it. The numbers seem to be ticking up by the years, and he shifts in place, anxiety bubbling in his chest. Suddenly he’s looking all over, for the source of a sound that he begins to hear, softly. He looks into the very far distance, he squints his eyes. His heart leaps when he sees Tooru, and he’s approaching, he’s coming nearer. “Tooru!” He yells, and he begins to run toward him. The track seems to stretch forever, but to his surprise they’re actually getting closer together, closer and closer, and he runs so hard it hurts. He nearly bowls Tooru down, arms going around him.

Tooru is stiff, and shoves him off. Hajime blinks, staring at him. Tooru’s face is painted with a cruel sort of humour. “You’re really still here? You’re _really_ still waiting?” He throws his head back, cackling, holding himself, hand on his chest. It goes on for so long, while Hajime gets more and more...lost, confused, as he swallows and shifts in his place, his foot tapping, his nails in his palm. He waits for the punchline. He has the dreaded feeling its...him.

“God, Iwaizumi, take a hint why don’t you!” He’s still laughing, wiping tears from his eyes, “God, _God_ , you’re pathetic, really, you are.” His voice is cruel, and Hajime hates how much he still longs to hear it, even as it’s cutting him deeply. He wants to just laugh along, apologize, maybe beg, he doesn’t know what to do, frozen in place, laughing mirthlessly. “You’re clinging on to me so tight, God, do you really think I would stop talking to you if I was still mooning over you? You know I’m smarter than that, right?” His tone is mocking, “Oh, poor Iwaizumi, losing his _soulmate_ , like that means anything. Fuck, just stop bothering me, won’t you? Let me be, I’m having a great time without you, you were always so stuck up, such a shitty person to party with.” 

They’re in Hajime’s apartment, suddenly, and Tooru is stuffing his shit in a suitcase while Hajime just watches. He doesn’t correct Tooru as he accidentally packs one or two of Hajime’s shirts. But he feels ice in his veins when he sees a familiar flash of green, freezing up and it’s zipped inside the unfamiliar suitcase, but someone so familiar and yet so unfamiliar to him. “Please, just leave that one-,” He’s cut off by a laugh, it’s mean, it’s meant to hurt, and it does. 

“None of this was ever yours. Anything I left behind with you was on accident.” He’s walking out the door, and Hajime watches the car he gets into disappear into the horizon. 

He wakes up, all at once, with the green sweater tucked against his chest. It feels like a hot iron in his hands, and he sets it aside as quickly as he can, like he’ll sully it. Like the sudden exhaustion, the sudden bone deep pain and hopelessness he feels will sink into the fabric. Like he’s betrayed Tooru somehow, like his mind has betrayed him by portraying him so cruelly. Like just by that fact, Tooru will disappear, as if he hasn’t already. His stomach is cold, and he vaguely picks on on the fact that he’s having a panic attack. He doesn’t move to do anything about it, just pulling the covers closer around him. He’s so tired, but so afraid to let himself go back to sleep. The dream feels all too real. Despite himself, he slips again into a dream. 

He’s in his mother’s kitchen, texting Tooru. Somewhere between telling him that Soppy, his mother’s dead cat, is doing very well, and Tooru telling him about Argentina, Tooru simply says “I don’t love you.” And Hajime freezes, phone in his hand, the blue light of a new morning painting his face, and he feels that cold dread again, in his gut, in his chest, all down his arms. Tooru says, “I think the me that loved you is dead, now.”

Somehow, all Hajime can reply with is, “I know.” 

Once more he awakens, once more he falls back under.

This time he’s falling. He’s falling, and he knows once he reaches the floor, he’ll die. For some reason, he feels like it’s his fault. He keeps apologizing, to everyone he can think about. Right before he hits the ground, he whispers out a pathetic “I’m so sorry, Tooru, I’m so s-” and then his eyes open to a bright room. 

He gets some tea. He feels the cold dread clinging to him. He steps outside, sipping on the tea as the sun rises, setting the cup on the table to begin his search for the best quartz stone. His mind is a disaster, each step feels like he’s walking on ice, like any step now he’s going to fall into the arms of cold, hopeless dread. He tries not to think, too hard. Focusing on the rocks beneath his feet, finally picking one out, holding it in his hand, appraising it, before slipping it in his pocket. He has breakfast with his Mama. She doesn’t comment on how tired he looks. He returns the favour. 

It’s noon when he pulls up to the post office. He isn’t expecting it to be so crowded, but the line is out the door for the main office. Slipping in, he decides to chance it with the machines, which by the look of it aren’t popular these days. He first locates the little foam envelopes, picking out one the size of his hand. He fishes the stone out of his pockets, rubbing his thumb over it gently. He’s careful not to be seen as he whispers to it everything he wants Tooru to know. About his Papa, about his Mama, how his brother took it, how he took it. How much he loves him, how much he misses him, how he hopes he’s doing well, to just fucking go to physical therapy, and glancing around, he presses his lips to the stone before dropping it into the bag. 

He has this burst of anxiety as he goes to put the package in the slot. He imagines it tossed in the trash, discarded without a second thought. Or maybe Tooru wouldn’t even get it, maybe it’d be sent to the wrong place, or in a truck that crashes, maybe it’ll get overlooked and get sent late, right as Tooru moves.   
Maybe this wasn’t even Tooru’s address anymore. How would he ever know? Wasn’t it so stupid to keep sending these dumb rocks?

He drops it in, and shoves the handle up, letting the package fall in. He stares at the machine until someone calls him, trying to get his attention. Startled, he apologizes, bowing and leaving as soon as he can. He sits in his car, head back against the headrest for so long. 

He feels stupid. He feels like such an idiot. 

He’s never felt more alone in his life.

Which was stupid. Which was so stupid. He has his friends, he has his team, he has his mother and his...right. His mother. He has her.   
He scoffs at himself and starts his car, driving ever so slightly too fast, like he could out drive the cold dread that had followed him through the day. He arrives at the florists he had picked out on his phone the night before. He greets the shopkeeper politely. 

“Are you here to buy flowers for a date?” The man’s eyebrows are sharp and long, and his grin is similar. He’s like an energetic caricature of his father, and he’s reminiscing suddenly about late night talks from his Papa. The night he’d told him he thinks he may be bi, his Papa’s amused quirked eyebrow. He’d acted offended Hajime hadn’t expected him to know, and somehow managed to insinuate he thought Tooru and Hajime belonged together without once using Tooru’s name. 

Which was altogether subtler than his Mama’s “I wish I found your Papa this young.” 

The man laughs, and he startles slightly, “She must be gorgeous, huh?”

Hajime chuckles, “Oh, yes. She is. The most gorgeous woman I know.” He picks a white rose out of a bunch, inspecting it. 

The man makes an amused sound, “Devotion and innocence, huh? Isn’t she gorgeous enough for a lily?”

“Devotion.” He nods stiffly. 

“You a very devoted lover?” The man’s head is on his hand, his grin is nearly contagious and he’s wiggling one eyebrow. Hajime laughs, and it comes out a note sadder than he meant it. 

“Maybe a bit too devoted, at times.” He fidgets with the cuffs of his shirt, gently pushing the rose back into the bunch. “Do you do deliveries?”

The man’s laugh is uproarious, “A bit too devoted, he says! Yes, we do. When for?”

“Do you do ongoing? Weekly?”  
The man looks blindsided, but it morphs into some sort of recognition.The man begins to talk about this man he’d often serve, who only bought white roses. He’d bought so many he’d become the talk of the florist community, and on and on about how he would search each rose for imperfections, and refused to have them delivered-only deliveries by his own hand would do. He should have known it would come up. 

“I know that man,” he says, and it’s fragile, his eyes on the ground, “He just passed.” 

“Got the same eyebrows, you two. Look a lot like him.” 

He nods stiffly, and the dread morphs into grief, bone deep. He feels like he’s moving through molasses. His face warps, and he’s doing his best not to fall apart. It’s just too much, and he feels like he’ll never find the light again. The man surprises him by stepping forward and pulling him into a hug. He’s stiff, in his arms, and he doesn’t relax into it. But he appreciates it, nonetheless, despite his confusion. “You’re still young, you shouldn’t wear a world weary expression like that, son. Here, let's get your deliveries scheduled, I’ll give you a hefty discount, that should lighten that brow.” He pats Hajime’s back hard, and Hajime feels nothing but guilt for daring to darken the mood of a sweet man, for taking advantage of his hospitality and making him feel like he had to give him a discount.

He tries to argue against it, but all that comes out is a choked sound, and the guilty embarrassment tightens around his chest. He’s signed and payed a month in advance before he can really process the fact that he’s crying in front of a random man, and he can’t believe how small the amount is, really, but then again he can hardly see it through the tears. He bows deeply, leaving before he can embarrass himself further. 

He only sees the iris tucked into his shirt pocket when he goes to turn his engine on, plucking it out and staring at it. It makes his eyes flood again, and he wants to crush it between his fingers, throw it out the window. He sets it on his dashport instead, beside the rubber duck that Matsun had put there.

He stays in his car until his eyes are dry, stepping inside. His mother is making lunch late, having gotten caught up in phone calls. She hugs him tightly when she sees his tear stained face. She tells him the funeral is going to be in four days. He holds her so tight she complains that her arm is being squished. 

He finally calls Kentarou, and doesn’t get a word in until he’s done kicking Hajime’s ass for disappearing for days. Hajime apologizes. He tells him his father has died, and Kentarou goes silent for a while, clearly processing. The rest of the phone call is a big blur. They’re coming the day before to help with things. 

By the time he’s in bed again, he barely feels like the day happened at all. Every memory is jagged, desynchronized, and the grief in his chest is palpable. He wonders if he’ll have nightmares again. He almost hopes he will.

If only to see Tooru’s face again.


	7. Do You Remember Our Treehouse?

_”Me too.”_ . . .

The sun is bright, on the field. Hajime is staring up into the sky, laying on his back on the turf. He can hear the idle ticking of the stopwatch somewhere. He doesn’t bother to reach for it. Tooru is laying next to him, their limbs lazily entangled; Hajime can’t remember which arm is his anymore. They haven’t said a word in so long. Tooru is anxious, beside him, guilty, and he can tell, because he’s still. He’s so still. Still twitching, fiddling, but not bouncing, not really moving. Just as Tooru goes to say something, Hajime shakes his head. He wants just a few more moments, to stay here a little longer. 

A few minutes later, Tooru sighs, pushing himself up. Hajime looks at him from the ground. They just look at eachother, for a while. 

“I don’t think you’re an idiot,” Tooru whispers. It takes Hajime a few moments to remember the conversation they’d had, and he blinks, reaching for Tooru’s hand in the bright green grass. “Hajime.” Tears well up in his eyes, and they drip down, dripping off of his chin. “I don’t. I don’t think you’re stupid. Or an idiot.” He pauses, “Well, maybe a little.”

Hajime rolls his eyes. 

“Why, then? Why? Why make decisions for me, why go?”

Tooru’s face is blank, relaxed, his thumb skates across Hajime’s. His laugh is empty, mirthless. “You don’t know when to quit.” 

The silence is thick as mud. Their eyes meet, and Hajime is the one that looks away first. “It’s my choi-”

“I know.” The tone is enough to make Hajime shut his mouth and look back at Tooru. He spots the tremor in Tooru’s brow, his drawn up shoulders. Nothing shows on his face. It doesn’t have to. “I know. It’s a fucking bad one, Hajime.”

“The fuck do you-”

“Hajime, there was. I kept thinking about it, okay, there was going to be this point, in a year, maybe two, maybe five, but there was going to be a point where you-,” he sighs, “Where you were going to. Regret it, all of it, all of our time together, all the shit I put you through, I keep. I keep imagining it-you. You think I’m more selfless than I am, you really do, I. I’m protecting myself too, you know? I couldn’t take that, I knew it was...I knew you’d say it some day, mean it too. That you wished you spent your time on someone who wouldn’t. Keep. Keep…,” he waves his hand in the air, groaning.

“It was...it would...it’d _hurt_ , Hajime. Not just because it. Because I keep imagining you smiling so vibrantly with someone, that full body laugh, in your thirties, maybe forties. And then I keep imagining you just, miserable with me. And I’d love to say it’s only because I, because I want you to be happy, and I do, God I do, but I couldn’t stand knowing that I was. That that would be my fault, that I’d be the biggest mistake of,” he stops short, making a frustrated sound through clenched teeth. “You’d say it in...maybe in anger, frustration, that you...that you regret it, and it would hurt so bad. It was in my head the whole...the whole flight, the entire time I was unpacking, I can’t…”

Hajime grinds his teeth. He looks away, turning his head for a moment. There’s a long breath out, his fingers find Tooru’s and curl together with them, mindlessly. 

“You’re stupid.”

Tooru huffs, “Oh, nevermind, you’ve convinced me.” He throws himself back down onto the grass, and Hajime can hear his furrowed brow, his pouty lips, the way his jaw wiggles slightly when he’s upset.

“I’ll give you wrinkles before long,” he begins, grinning, “You’ll be in the mirror for hours, wishing you’d chosen someone more fun.” The tone is teasingly dramatic, and he hears the moment the teasing clicks, the knee coming up to bang him in the ribcage.

“I wasn’t KIDDING, Hajime!” 

He huffs with the force at which the knee hits him, then laughs a bit pained, “I know. But you were being too depressed to listen no matter what amazing point I would have made.” His eyes close, and his lips spread up in a grin. 

“Amazing point…,” he snorts. But there’s some hesitancy, and the way he shifts next to Hajime tells him he really does want a response. The doubt wasn’t new, it was old and weathered, beaten in. It was a direct quote, part of it, from a line one of Tooru’s exes had used to break up with him. He’s sure he’s heard it more than that, even, more times than Hajime’s been around to see. It wasn’t alien to either of them, that cold curling feeling of doubt. It’d painted both their faces enough times before.

“First of all,” he starts, and he pushes himself up, facing Tooru, his face spelling serious in capital letters. “I’ve seen you at multiple worsts.” His eyebrow is hitched, and Tooru tenses a little like he’s expecting it to all be addressed right there and then, shoved in his face. He’s lucky Hajime is too worn out to spend the time doing that, today. “They were all awful. You run away, you isolate yourself, you’ll use any excuse, any underhanded method to be left alone, even while pretending you’re present and involved, you get so self destructive and you won’t listen to reason no matter how many ways it’s delivered. I happen to be human. Humans have finite energy resources, regardless of what it is they’re focusing on.” Unlike Godzilla, he thinks quietly to himself, because he’s pretty sure Godzilla doesn’t have to drink coffee in the morning for a brisk walk and a few hours of office work. 

“Despite that, I’m fine.” They’d just run so many laps, so many of them, and Hajime knows somewhere in his slightly conscious consideration that it’s a metaphor, an obvious one, and he’s sore, tired, and if anything a bit grumpy. But he’s alright, healthy and breathing. 

“Second of all, have you met me, Tooru?” This is met with nearly a cackle of a laugh, one few subjects really drew out of him. Tooru happened to have the market on those subjects. “Do you remember the girl I dated our second year of highschool?” 

Tooru’s face immediately sours. His brows pull in, and his eye twitches, he sucks the side of his lip in, and Hajime resists the urge to roll his eyes. “I do.” It’s curt, and there’s a bit of a sniff after it, “Why? What about her??”

“She was practically perfect,” He says, and he’s ready for the crumpling of Tooru’s face, the figurative blowing of smoke that comes after, the way Tooru looks at him like he wants to peel every nail on Hajime’s hands and toes off slowly.

“Excuse me?”

“She was. She had all of her shit together, she was never sick for longer than a week, we never fought once-,” he’s stopped by Tooru making an angry noise, his pout carved into the planes of his face. Hajime thought he looked ready to find and kill her. 

“Okay, so, why isn’t _she_ here _now_ , huh? Why isn’t she still here? Why aren’t you with her!” Each sentence is said so fast, more clipped than a parrot’s wings and so, so grumpily. Hajime wants to kiss him so badly. 

He waits a moment, while the steam that’s pouring out of Tooru’s every poor cools slightly and he finally looks at Hajime again, confused as to why he isn’t speaking. “She broke up with me.” Tooru looks shocked for a moment, puzzled. “Because I was always anxious that she’d get hurt. Every time she messed up I’d overreact, every time she got sick I’d smother her. Not everyone can handle my impressively large amount of paranoia and anxiety. Just because I have good reasoning to be so anxious and paranoid with your idiot ass,” He earns a glare, but Tooru stays listening, “Doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t you. I’m a miserable person by trade.” He shrugs, and Tooru just stares at him.

“We’ll have to work on tha-,” He pauses, visibly realizing what he’s saying, his eyes flit to the floor and Hajime watches his brain churn for a moment. 

Hajime leans forward and presses his lips to Tooru’s cheek. They stand, and their pinkies link as they begin to walk off the track. “Hajime?”

Hajime looks at him, and he looks back. Tooru is about to say something, his lips begin to move. 

Hajime’s eyes open, and he’s in the present. He lets the events of the dream circulate in his mind. He’s waiting for it to come crush him again, waiting for reality to squander whatever sense of ease he’s experiencing. For once, even ten minutes later, he’s fine. The idea of Tooru in pain and suffering out there still makes pain shoot up his fingers, the things Tooru is often prone to do in such a state nag him, but he pulls himself out of bed to get some water. The clock reads 6:00AM.

Today is the funeral.

It’s sunny outside, surprisingly. He thought maybe the sky would comply like it did in movies, serving as a great metaphor for the way they all felt. It’s indignant, though, and shifting from a gorgeous sunrise into a beautiful blue, open and clear. He wants to be scornful of it, but there are birds gathering on the fencing outside, and the wind blows through the trees just right. He steps outside and sits on a swinging bench his dad had installed for him and Tooru when they were younger. It creaks something awful, so he sits still, and watches the sun journey up.

He feels a sense of peace for the first time in a while, just breathing in the morning air, sipping the tea he’d made. Like the devil-clawed clutches of anxiety and pain couldn’t reach him, for just a moment. For just the barest second.

He feels the bench move, as if someone had sat down, and he turns to greet his mother.

To his surprise, she isn’t there. He sits, contemplating it, doubting his senses. Setting his tea down, he bows deeply to the empty seat, folded nearly in half. He holds himself there until he swears he can feel the brush of fingers against his hair, and turns back to his tea, keeping his eyes purposefully on the cup.  
He doesn’t move from that position, hands clasped together and tears dripping down his face. His breath is baited. His papa was always the one to break the silence, but this time it’s up to him.

“I don’t know what to do,” he says. Iwaizumi men didn’t admit their lack of direction, their confusion. They didn’t admit they were wrong, or didn’t know what they were doing. 

He lowers his head, and the next words come out strained as he holds back his tears, “I don’t know what to _do_.” His body is shaking, and the tears begin to slip despite his efforts. He had rarely seen his papa cry growing up. So he’d kept his tears where they belonged. Pillows at three PM, when his face was hidden behind the front seats of the car and into Tooru’s shoulder in their hideout.

“He’s...it’s…,” he laughs, and it’s sharp and painful, nails on a chalkboard. “I know what happens, here.” He digs his fingernails into his palms, and then his arm, like he could claw the pain out. “I…,” he shakes his head, the words sticking in his throat. He can’t bear to say them, can’t bear to admit he can’t do anything. He sobs, openly, the pain and anguish, the anxiety, all of his feelings of loss. “I miss you, Papa.” He shakes his head, “You can’t be gone. You can’t, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do! Please, please, you have to tell me what to do.”

He curls his legs up toward his torso, clinging to himself, the pain ripping through every inch of him. 

He feels like it will never end, like there will never be any escaping it. Like he’s bound to experience loss every day of his life until he dies, like every moment will be filled with torment, and for the first time in his life his determination waivers.  
Was he bound to lose everyone he loved in exceedingly painful ways? Was the loss meant to stick to every empty thought, curl into every unfilled crack in him? Was it meant to be so unavoidable, so painful? 

Why did he always have to be the one that lost, and not the one who was lost? 

He lets himself imagine a world in which he had been the one to break contact off with Tooru. The one that had pulled away, the one that had faded ever so slowly out of Tooru’s life, so delicately there was no preventing it.

The one who’s responses kept getting shorter, who texted less and less frequently, who always had an excuse for why he couldn’t call, who would avoid anything more than small talk. 

He tries imagining himself sending “Yeah”, “Haha!” or “Lol” to a genuine text from Tooru.

He tries to imagine how Tooru would take it, the confusion he would feel, the fear he would feel to watch Hajime slip away from him.

He tries to imagine himself going through with it, tries to imagine a world in which he simply doesn’t think of Tooru anymore. Where he’s too busy for his thoughts to linger, where he smiles at someone else the way he only smiled at Tooru, or listened to someone’s third or fourth time retelling a story he knew by heart.

He tries to imagine anyone but Tooru filling that space in his life.

He’s focused enough on the thoughts that his sobbing has slowed to crying. Bitterness clogs his throat, indignation curls his fist, anger stiffens his shoulders.

He can imagine it. He can imagine slowly slipping from someone’s grasp. He’d done it to everyone who’s number was slid his way at a bar, to every date that ended in a surprise kiss, to every “we should do that again!”. He’d done it because the idea of breaking their hearts, the idea of never being able to give them all of him, the idea of hurting people wantonly to fill his own needs, those weren’t things he wanted.

He can imagine someone else filling that space. He’d felt connected to others, before, he’d felt love, butterflies in his stomach. He’d felt understood, here and there, though never as completely (but given the time, maybe.)

He can imagine it. 

The problem was, he didn’t want it. The blocked numbers, the “I’m sorry”s, the ghosting, it spelled it out well enough. 

“Am I being an idiot?” He mumbles. 

He doesn’t need Tooru in his life. He never had, and that was something he was fully aware of. He could just as easily blacklist his name on his news app, go on dates and stop worrying. He could just as easily go through the arduous process of removing him from his thoughts, forcing himself to move on, to let the distance finally consume whatever was left between them.

Two extremes. Pine after him for the rest of his life, or wipe him entirely from his mind like Tooru seemed to want. 

Hajime’s eyes flit to the floor. Behind his eyelids is Tooru’s smile, the way he quirks his head as he listens. The tiny bald patch on his right temple and the obnoxious way he chews gum. The ache of missing him kicks him right back in the sternum. 

Could he bear to let all of those memories go? 

Could he bear to forget Tooru’s smile? To let his laugh fall off into obscurity, to forget the mole on his left elbow, the way his eyes roll, the worn responses, a secret language no one else could decipher? 

He could make new memories, after all. Learn someone elses’ smile, someone elses’ laugh. Their body language, their favourite ways to eat food. He could smile at their peculiarities, listen to them talk. 

He could, probably, look at someone without noting how their hairline is straight in the middle, where Tooru’s strays off to his left side. Without noting that their eyes are just a shade darker, that their nose is just a bit more tapered, that they don’t walk quite like him. 

He could be happy without him. There would always be a lingering feeling of something missing, his thoughts would travel back to him occasionally. He would wonder if he still remembered Hajime, every now and again. He would become someone that Hajime remembered loving. In the past.

The thought doesn’t terrify him. Not as much as it used to.

Maybe he’d finally learn to give up. 

His feet cross over one another. He’s stopped crying, but he feels numb. 

What would he tell this future lover of his. Would he tell them about Tooru? Would he tell them he loved him? Would it ever even come up? Or would it be something he mentions in passing, something a movie they watch cuddled on the couch together reminds him of. A story he halfheartedly tells, tucked beside them in bed. 

Would it make them jealous? Would they listen, if he were to ramble for hours on end, if he was to bring him up, would they roll their eyes and say “not Tooru again”? Or would they ask questions, curious and secure, wondering about this past love of his, who’s place was so firmly stitched in place, unmovable in it’s placement, for time was only ever as real as it was untouchable? 

It makes him feel cold. The sun’s warmth doesn’t touch the ice that clings to his bones. 

Could he be content to know the time he’d spent with Tooru would be the only time he would get? Would he be content giving up, giving in, knowing that there could have been a chance, if he’d just held on a little longer. Knowing that, despite his ever hopeless outlook, there was the possibility, even in the abstract? 

He’d never been able to do that, really. 

He’d never been able to take a maybe and go. He’d never been able to think “maybe, just maybe, I should change courses” if the course he was on had even a change of success.

He feels a gust of wind flow through him, chilly despite the warm sunny day it was turning out to be. It guides his eyes up to the tree whose branches cut into the space of the backyard, ignoring the fence’s clear boundary. 

Tooru and him had built a treehouse in that tree. The ladder was long gone, but the rickety structure remains. His eyes trace it’s every poorly nailed plank as his mind begins to spin the idea through his head. The tree wasn’t part of the backyard. It was closed off from it, the stern fence keeping it firmly on one side. Despite this the branches that had found their way into the spaces, though the tree had no intention of intruding, weren’t cut or destroyed or rejected. 

The tree wasn’t part of the backyard. But they built a house in it. It wasn’t meant to be there, by design. The tree had no stake in intruding into the yard. They were left there on purpose, and repurposed into something usable, worthwhile. 

He thinks maybe he understands, but the idea lingers on his mind as he dresses for the funeral. 

He was always split between two extremes. Always in the middle arbiter between a side of himself that demanded action, and one that begged patience. Neither side appreciated the mediation. Each promised him he was making a mistake with every concession to the other, mean spirited jagging at every mistake that could come of either. 

Maybe it was time for both, instead. 

He could put his fence up and build his perfect space, his patio, and invite people in. But those branches didn’t have to go, and maybe it wasn’t the worse thing to always have…

A space there. One put aside. 

He looks at himself in the mirror, trying to smooth the wrinkles forming on the bridge of his nose out with his finger. 

“Okay.” He says to the face that stares back at him. He can see the fear there, the apprehension, and it’s a line from Tooru that convinces him, one that goes “Sometimes things that scare you are worth doing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love you.


	8. Legos; Rattle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE check tags for updated warnings. This chapter contains allusions to drug use and a lot of throwing up. You CAN skip this chapter. There will be a bit of a catchup next one. 
> 
> This chapter was written with a lot of help from a friend. They didn't want to be mentioned by name, but they're a lovely darling who helped very much. Thank you dear.

The funeral had been like every other family affair.

Everyone on his Dad’s side held back tears until they couldn’t, everyone on his Mother’s side cried openly, clinging to one another, and it ended with his Mother giving a speech that made them all sob. This time, a speech about memories, about how they should be remembered, celebrated. How a part of the departed was always kept through memories, was never fully lost as long as someone remembered it. How the pain of loss was just love that couldn’t be given anymore, hands that couldn’t be held. It ended in her kissing his father’s face, and laying him to rest with thick bundles of white roses.

The coffin lid was shut, the coffin was lowered, and that was that. The ride home was quiet, only him and his mother. He drove while his Mother emptied a tissue box. His brother had to be back the next day for work, his aunts and uncles dispersed, not before asking him if he had found true love yet, clapping him on the back. Where’s the wife and kids you’re going to have, Hajime. Your dad will never meet your kids. Does that make you sad? 

There’s an angry bird sticker on the door. It’s the first thing he sees when he pushes the creaky door open. 

Disused, never visited. Who would want to stand in a dusty room full of bittersweet memories?

Hajime, apparently. The sides of the sticker are peeling, black with filth and no longer tacky. Almost out of habit, Hajime smooths it down with his thumb. It doesn’t stick.

Tooru had put it there because it had thick, pointy, angry eyebrows, and he’d written “Hajime” on it in sharpie. In retaliation, Hajime had stuck a green alien face to the door and labeled it “shittykawa”. 

Hajime hadn’t taken much when he’d moved out. He’d never been materialistic, and really he knew he’d be back here anyway. He just hadn’t, in his youth, quite realized how long of a drive it was when you were trying to plan it into a full load of courses, a night job and a meager but existent social life. By the time he’d had the time to visit and take more things from the room, Tooru was gone, and nothing in the room was worth the pain of going into it. It would be like stomping on one of the many legos strewn about haphazardly. 

Tooru’s bed has every single blanket in the room on it. Hajime’s is stripped down to the bed liner. They’d always slept in one bed anyway, but he liked to bitch about how Tooru stole the blankets. His exasperated “Did not!” was ever so worth it. 

There’s a bionicle with no head that greets him from between their beds as he sits on his. It’s hand is raised in a salute, one leg bent backwards for no particular reason. 

He picks up a hoodie that’s been discarded beside Tooru’s bed. He can tell it’s his because of the sizable hole in the jacket arm. He holds it in his hands and runs a thumb over a seam.  
He clears his throat. His face melts into a warm smile, even as tears well up. 

“Tooru,” he starts, and it’s in a light voice, a watery one, “I love you.” His hand fists in the fabric, and his brows furrow. “I don’t know everything about you, anymore.” It hurts to say, surrounded by knowledge that’s aged, an understanding that hasn’t been updated. He presses his nose to the hoodie. It smells like dust, and it makes his nose burn. Tooru had never stayed the same for one minute of their lives. He had a solid foundation of things that made him up, but it was like a rock bottom to a sand pit. Things changed constantly. Hajime never had to learn to love it, watching him roll through stages of being was just something he valued. 

The soft lap of waves against a beach, the sand ever shifting. Toppling and dissolving sandcastles to be rebuilt the next day. Tooru was just as gorgeous, just as prone to change. Hajime was just a rock somewhere among the waves, most days. Maybe a cliffside the next. He, too, had never been prone to sticking so faithfully to one form. Always solid, always stable, but never stagnant. The metaphor was ever changing along with them.

But the meaning was more or less the same. Tooru’s shifting tide, Hajime’s solid anchor of land. The tide pools they created together, pockets of ever evolving life, specific to them. Not able to be recreated under any other circumstances. But never just the same, often washed away in preparation for new life. 

It was always nagging him now, though. He wanted to know what the Thing was, what the thing was that Tooru wasn’t able to shut up about. What things were cycling. What ‘love it more than anything ever ever ever’ would be replaced this week. 

He breathes out the coastal air. He was landlocked. His ocean so far from him. He’d begun to grow in between the cracks, new life all of his own. Not lesser but entirely incomparable regardless. He sets the hoodie back where he got it and goes to kneel now in front of the closet doors. He pushes the clothing aside, feeling around with his hands. His hand hits the corner of the box, its sharp edge scoring his hand. He rolls his eyes. He always told Tooru not to put the sharp side facing out. Figures it would get him, after all these years. 

It takes a few tries to pry it out. He’s left covered in dust, with the box in his lap. Any attempts to swipe the dust off only cakes his hand instead, and he figures he’s better off going at it with a paper towel. 

It takes about eight to get the thing cleaned off. The jagged broken edge is more apparent with the dust gone, more visible from the top down. Tooru had dropped it, and his response to having damaged it was to go at it with sandpaper. In the end, he’d sharpened the wood into a weapon. Hajime had found this out the hard way. Instinctively, he traces his hand over a scar that’s barely there anymore, remembering Tooru’s stammered excuses.

“It’s still a box, idiot. As long as it holds stuff it’s fine.” He mumbles the words to himself as he pops the lid. His lip twitches. All accounted for, still. He shuts the lid, and slips it into his duffle, banishing it from his mind for now. 

It takes him almost ten minutes to get his tie off. His Mama said it was because he always tied them too tight, just like his Papa. He tries to find any trace of his father in his eyes, in his face, leans close to the mirror to stare at himself. His hair sticks up in the back, alike his father. The way his brows are set. The uneven curve of his jaw. 

But mostly, what he sees is the dull tiredness of his eyes, eye bags permanently set into his face. Cracked lips, dry skin around his nose. 

He decides to turn in early. The sun hasn’t quite set yet, but the light it provides only makes his eyes burn. 

\---

He’s in the track field again. He doesn’t look for anyone. He knows he’s alone, and boy does he fucking hate being alone. He’s only letting the sun soak his skin. He doesn’t move for the rest of the dream, just lets the smell of the turf wash over him, just looks up at the sky. It’s purposeless, and relaxing. He thinks this is how dreams ought to be. Rarely ever are. Nightmares upon nightmares, that was how the cookie crumbled. Fuck the stupid cookie, he fucking hates baking, anyway.

He tries to ignore the crumbled up paper in his hand. The note that had been left behind. The goodbye, the reason he knew not to look. At least it had been straightforward. He could do with more of that, couldn’t he? Especially from himself. He could do with being a bit more forward.

He was too self aware to hope for that big of a leap in his own behavior any time soon, though.

And what did Hajime always say, anyway? That he had to work for it. Like he didn’t know.

Oikawa Tooru leans his head back against the hard asphalt and takes only pleasure in how much that stings. It’s a hot day, and asphalt didn’t make a nice pillow. At least it alleviates the guilt he feels, like some minor punishment for the horrific misdemeanor that relaxing comfortably was. Maybe he’d try bashing his face into it later, as a treat. 

He doesn’t know why he lets himself end up here so often. It wasn’t a nightmare on paper. At least, not one he’d wake up with his heart racing from. It didn’t get under his skin with a scalpel, it wasn’t laced with malice and a loss of control. It wasn’t purely bad. Maybe that’s why it was the worse. Every variation, every time spent with Hajime that made him wake up nauseous, empty his stomach into the nearest container. 

It was the bone deep guilt he got from enjoying them so much that was a nightmare. Like he was letting himself have something that didn’t belong to him, stealing it, tearing something beautiful apart. Murdering a dove. Ripping each feather off, one by one. 

It doesn’t stop him from longing for them. Every night without one is unsatisfying, every night with makes him want to scrub the guilt from his skin.

He was younger when he was here. Stupider, but cleaner, more innocent. His guilt had been for simpler things. Being born, being a fuck up, being weird. 

He feels, now, like an oil spill. Like toxic, fuming slime that mangled and killed anything it touched, sucked the life out of the most gorgeous flowers, subsuming any innocent animals that weren’t clever enough to spot the danger. His touch was a curse, and anyone subjected was a victim. No one deserved to be covered in the pretty lies and burning chemicals surrounding him. Least of all Hajime. 

The logical part of him tries to object. Before it gets the chance, his arms begin to dissolve, running through the fake fibers of the grass into the asphalt, pretty and holographic like an oil spill, and he doesn’t begin to scream until his jaw and face began to melt too. 

He wakes up with a shock, touching down his arms, his face. His face is numb, his head is fuzzy, and he lets himself sink back against the bed with a sigh. Serves him right. He tries to shake the thoughts out of his head, but only succeeds in making the room spin. He’s going to throw up. Later, hopefully, but he will. It’s just how it is. 

When he pulls himself up from his bed, his knee aches so bad he nearly topples over. He shoves his hands in his drawer, looking for the pills. They must have fallen to the floor, at some point, and he’s too worn out to consider turning his flashlight on. He just sits on the edge of the bed, moving his foot around until he hears a rattle. 

Its four am. He has fuck all to do today, just like yesterday, and the day before, because of course he had to hurt his knee. Of course he had to be a professional athlete. Of course he had to have passion or whatever. Of course he had to get his muddy hands on clean sheets he didn’t deserve. 

The mirror has a different opinion about him. 

In the mirror his skin is grey, and his eyes are dull. His hair hasn’t been touched with a comb in ages, nor showered. It stuck up weird. He couldn’t be asked to care. Nor begged, pleaded with or- he grabs a comb and goes at it, throwing it against the floor when it refuses to work. Then he picks it back up and puts it away. Because he’s an adult. Even if he feels like he wants to call his dad right now. 

Somehow between that moment and the next six hours pass. He can’t remember what he was doing. He’s not overly surprised.  
When he looks in the mirror again he’s glowing. His smile is charming. His eyes are shining. He tries not to move too much, or the image distorts. Like a statue, he’s more beautiful still, and if he falls over he just might shatter.

He takes a moment to glare daggers at his calendar.

He has Six months. Six months before the next round of tournaments. The next round of ‘real’ games. But he’s missing out on all the interims. He tries to summon any real anger about that. But he knows he can do it, he’ll just charm his way out of physicals, out of tests. He can get out of them. He’s got a silver tongue, he has so much passion, and-

His phone rings, and he flinches away from it. He knows who’s ringtone that is. The light shrinks slightly away from him. It never held up to Hajime’s eyes.

He hadn’t called in a while. Tooru has to bite into his hand hard to stop from grabbing the phone. The last thing he needed to do right now was speak to Hajime. The last thing he needed to do was try and explain himself. Try and stumble through an apology like this. Hajime was too observant, and even the temporary confidence would only last so long under that kind of scrutiny. 

He always meant to answer, eventually. He doesn’t know why Hajime even tries anymore. Hadn’t he worked so hard to find a way out of all that...all the...

He could only listen to Hajime’s voicemails on the good days. Didn’t feel much like he deserved them, even when the image in the mirror wasn’t quite so pallid. Especially when what he considered good days were…

Not the same as Hajime’s interpretation. Wouldn’t hold up. Wouldn’t be enough. Felt filthy, and it would rub off on whatever came into contact with it.

He wakes up again when the sun is rising. He blinks at it in disbelief. Doesn’t remember falling asleep, or even coming home. Time was always running away from him these days. He didn’t feel too bitter at it’s loss, most of the time. 

Sometimes it pissed him off. What right did the world have to just keep. Going.

He drags himself up, forces food and water into his face. Enough. Rattle. Time passes again. He’s outside, crouched down next to a patch of wild Dandelions, asleep, in his kitchen, scrubbing at his face in the bathroom, asleep, on top of the world, face down on the ground. Rattle. The days with nothing to do are the hardest. They always are, and that’s all there is, right now.

He’s jostled back into the world by his stupid fucking phone ringing again. It’s only mildly less irritating because he knows who it is. Mildly, because he wants the world to leave him the fuck alone. He grabs it, snapping it off it’s charger and turning over, watching it ring. Without his input, his finger hits the answer button, and his eyes widen. He holds it there for a moment before shoving it against his ear. 

He hears Hajime breathe on the other line. He hears him suck in a shocked breath, and the irritation concedes slightly to guilt. If his whole body wasn’t already so hot, he knows his chest might warm. 

“Tooru.”

“Hajime.” His sounds like a sigh of relief, but the sharp burn in his chest turns on him, and his nails dig into his neck. It might have been anxiety, any other time. Right now it just feels like there’s hooks in his skin, pulling at him. The surface was numb, but they went deep enough to ache.

“Did you mean to pick up.” His voice is direct, strong, water on the beach, but it feels cold on Tooru’s heated skin, and the sensation is altogether painful. He almost hangs up. Hajime seems to be expecting it. He’s not begging him to stay.

“I.” Tooru swivels his tongue in his mouth, clearing his throat. “I did. Yes.” Hajime’s breath is thoughtful, if confused. If doubtful. “What? I did. I...meant to.” He closes his eyes, “Hi.”

“Hey.” Hajime responds. He can hear the thousand questions Hajime is holding back. He doesn’t feel angry. Tooru can’t fathom how. He must be. He is, realistically he is. But not like Tooru’s occasional dreams where Hajime won’t stop screaming, won’t stop telling him how disgusting he is. 

“Just ask. Just ask, god.” Tooru’s face sinks into his hand, and the sharp burning gets worse. He swallows the urges to top up on the confidence he’d been feeling moments ago, as it slowly ebbs away. “Don’t just be silent. Please.” 

Hajime breathes out heavily. “Why aren’t you going to physical therapy. To the doctor.” Tooru can’t swallow back the bark of disbelief. Is this what he was calling about? 

“What do you-Why do you care?” he laughs bitterly, rubbing his hand over his eyes. “I can’t. Yet. I can’t yet.” 

“Why not?” It takes Tooru a moment to figure out if that’s an answer to the question or his response. 

“I. Can’t. I can’t, Hajime. They do...it’s...it requires a full physical and a…,” he sucks in a deep breath, his cheeks puffing up, and closes his eyes. 

Hajime doesn’t make him say it. He can tell he understands. He can’t find it in him to be happy about that. 

“Oh.” He can hear Hajime digesting it. It makes him want to claw his own eyes out. 

“Yeah.” He runs a nail along his leg. He hasn’t talked to him in years. They haven’t talked in two and a half years and this is the first thing he’s saying to him. The first thing he’s conveying. Is this. Is that he’s fallen down again, is that he’s putting a wrench in a future he’s worked hard for, and he’s ready. Waiting for the tongue lashing. Waiting for disappointment. He’s greeted with long minutes of silence instead, and every second it hurts more. “Why do you care. Why do you care, Hajime.” I’ve worked so hard for you to be free of exactly this, he wants to say, I’ve strangled myself to free you of this. What kind of idiot keeps trying to find their way back just to be disappointed, just to be hurt. Just to be part of this shitshow. For a moment he’s so angry at Hajime he wants to scream.

“I miss you.” Is all he gets. His eyes clamp shut, and he bites his tongue. “I always care.” Follows shortly, just to really press it in, he guesses. It feels like plastic against his skin. But the proof is in the endless stream of six-am-in-Japan voicemails, the rocks he’d filled his flower vases with, the letters, the-fuck. 

His head drops into his pillow, and the muffled, “I miss you too,” and he feels slime, toxic burning. Oil spilling down him in rivulets, staining the sheets. He can smell himself burning.

“Tooru. I love you.” 

He almost chokes on it. On the mix of burning hot acrid anger, on the deep seated longing. 

“I love you too.”

He hangs up. He tosses his phone as far as he can. 

He throws up, over and over again. 

The mirror can only be avoided for so long, and the glowing statue has disappeared, like it always did. In its place is a spectre. He thinks, just for a brief moment, that if Hajime really saw him as he was now, those calls would stop. The letters. The rocks. If he saw him, really saw him now. 

The oil showed in his eyes, the shimmering rivulets of dark, heavy oil clung to every inch of his skin. A pallid spectre. He wants the statue back. He wants the burning. He wants to feel alive. 

He just wants it all to stop. 

He wants Hajime. 

He wants to feel in control of himself again. 

It’ll only last so long. Maybe that’s for the best. Or maybe that’s the worse part. Hard to tell sometimes. 

He dreams of snakes ripping his flesh from his bone. 

Rattle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The ugliest painting is a self-portrait. Your flaws are always more apparent than that of any others when all else fades. 
> 
> But you're an unreliable narrator. We all are. 
> 
> I love you.
> 
> I'm always painting every bruise and scar and 'imperfection'. Writing this was like that. Inaccurate maybe, but for the sake of art, because the layers of paint only touch the surface and I can only reach so far, right now. I hope it's not garishly ugly, I hope it doesn't wear unkindly. 
> 
> I should sleep, it's late. I wrote this late. It burned me until I did. 
> 
> I love you. I hope you don't actually read this. If you do, this note is just here to make sure you understand. It's just a painting. Sometimes they're more accurate than others. The artist can never reach deep enough to make it perfect, the harder they try the more convoluted and ugly it's going to be. I can't crawl into your skin. You might find it tasteless and ugly, but it wasn't written with a cruel hand.
> 
> You're beautiful. I love you. Good night.


End file.
